up by a bomb and was in a coma for months. he is still traumatically brain injured to the point where his mother wi not allow me to see him, even though he wants to see me. i predict god you are helping, and not just helping other people -- pray to god you are helping, not just helping other people's wallets -- but you don't know the extent of people's homes are. my son was wearing -- basically -- extent of what people's helmets are. my son was wearing basically a world war ii helmet. and you said that thank god for the war so we can study these brain injuries. if people were not fighting for

greed and power, we would not have these brain injuries. host: i guarantee you that katherine helmick did not say thank god for the war. but if you could address his concerns. guest: there is no doubt that these injuries are serious, they affect not just service members of their families, extended families, their spouses, their children. we want to be able to look eyeball to eyeball had everybody to share with them our deepest commitments to ensure state of the art care is being delivered to our service members, state of the art traumatic brain injury care. one of the purposes of our organization is to understand research out there, at databases

and programs that help support families and pchildren during these very serious injuries. there is a deep commitment to ensure that we are providing the very best care that we can, but on the battlefield and as well when service members rurn home. host: yvon, connecticut, you are on. ok, you know the rules, u have to turn down the volume. rachel, independent line. caller: my sister had a brain injury, and when she goes to department stores or doctors' offices, she goes into seizures. are you noticing any young men having seizures? guest: sure.

epilepsy or post-traumatic seizures can be a significant ocrrence after more severe brain injuries. are not seeing rates of the seizures at a significantly higher level in concussive population. it sounds like your sister suffered a more penetrating injury. many times there are these areas that don't fire correctly. that is one of the reasons that a patient who has sustained a severe or penetrating injury on the battlefield it immediately gets medications, even before you get to germany or combat support hospital environment. epilepsy and posttraumatic seizures are extremely significant complications and concern after serious brain injuries. we're not seeing any significant rates in the concussion or mild

tbi population. host: going back to the department of defense's chart on traumatic brain injury categories, do you know offhand how many of those folks have fully recovered, partially recovered, still in rehab hospitals? guest: most of those folks fully recover. they may have a minor contacted deficits, physical complaints, -- minor cognitive deficits, of physical complaints, but the majority to improve to the point of having gainful employment, a good quality of life, able to enjoy time with family members. this is due to a lot of aggressive upfront interventions, and getting to the culprit, whether it is a

blood clot or something else that needs to be treated. when the bullet goes in, many times there is damaged tissue around where the bullet is. one treatment that is rather common is to get rid of damaged tissue, because the causes swelng in the brain. -- that causes swelling in the brain and increases brain adema. host: is the brain able to regenerate itself? if you're cutting out a chunk of the brain -- guest: what we like to say is that there is rerouting of pathways. whether it can around the area

of damage is still a question mark in research circles. but it can reroute around to accomplish whatever function. from our mri studies, we know that people who sustained brain injuries require more endurance to complete the same action than someone who did not have if i am trying to solve a math problem i had and i did not he to bring injury, it would not show up as much on my staff as someone- on my scan as someone with an injury. host: what about pharmaceuticals? guest: when we speak about penetrating and traumatic brain injury, unfortunately we have not succeeded in the

neuroprotection meds that we desire. at least 40 clinical trials have not ylded fruitful results that would allow us to, let's say, have a little syringe of medication that could stop some of the negative at cellular events that happen after brain injury. we're working very hard with the national institutes of health and neurological study, as well as the department of defense, but unfortunately it has not yielded results. host: are you working with the nfl? guest:od and nfl are working together partly on signs but also on strategic communication. -- partly on science but also on strategic communication. elite athletes committedo

the game and to the mission. one of the old lines is that troy aikman had an injury and right afterwards was great, so i should be ok, too. we are working to adequately highlight the serious nature of getting it checked out. go and get it checked out by somebody and give your brain time to recalibrate and then go back out into the game or the fight, whatever are read out. -- whatever arena. host: yvonne from connecticut, you ready? caller: i am. thank you for taking my call. i have been dealing with the brain injury for the last 25 years and am aware of everything you are saying. but you he to understand that, depending on where the brain has

been hit, that is where the damage will be given to the human being and the care they will get rid they lose a lot of the loading capabilities, so does -- they lose a lot of the arningapabilities, such as math. seizures is a complicated thing. and medicine -- we are still working in the field to control seizures of any kind. host: can you tell us how you have the 25 years of experience? caller: i have a son who was brain damaged. host: frothe military? caller: no, not the military, but i have full sympathy for these men and women coming back. i know what they have to deal with. it is a long, long process. the behaviors can be very crucial to the family, and can

break up a family. and on the outside world, if they do have a problem, people think that they are dangerous when they are not. they have a problem. and they are brain damaged. i need to thank you so much, ms. helmick, for doing whatever you can for our poor men and women over there. it is an ongoing problem. guest: that you for that. i appreciate your story. we know that families struggle quite severely, and there is brokenness, pain, suffering. we want to detect these things early. we think we have adequate treatments that help people get better, and we want to support the families as well. this gives me a good opportunity to share with you that the department of defense just released a caregivers' g

uide. it was a congression mandate to hel service member is going through the journey after the brain injury. talks about finding meaning in this situation, in the whole dynamic. i would encourage you to take a look at that, and maybe that would help even this far out, 25 years later, to provide support. can i give out the e-mail? host: sure pr. guest: traumaticbraininjuryatoz.org. host: a lot of what the dod is

learning -- is it being transferred to the general population? guest: absolutely. multi-trauma patients -- if you get into a car accident on a highway, many centers are screening and looking for compassion for patients with these multi-trauma scenarios. before, many centers were looking for critical injuries, as they should continue to look for critical injuries, but they should also be mindful of the awareness that they should treat the concussion early on. that is one of the large relations to the civilian sector. we are very close to having an objective marker for compassi -- for concussion, sort of like

a blood test. or pregnancy test. >> we are going to leave "washington journal" at this point and go live to the americans for prosperity foundation for the annual american dream summit. you will hear from bob mcdonnell and fox news contributor dick morris. this is live coverage on c-span. >> the president for -- of americans for prosperity, tim phillips. >> good afternoon, fellow freedom fighters. [cheers] i want to welcome you to america and ask for prosperities fourth annual dream summit. over 2400 of you from all states, from all walks of life, united by desire, desire to protect our freedoms by turning our great nation in a different

direction. that is exactly what we are going to do. [applause] you know, maybe it is just a coincidence. i do not know. i will let you decide. but president obama heard that you guys were coming to washington today -- [laughter] feared that a few hundred thousand of his closest friends were coming to see -- he heard that a few hundred thousand of his closest friends were coming beck tomorrow.che [applause] and i'm sure its a coincidence, but he decided it was time for another vacation. he decided it was time to get out of town. congratulations, you are already making a difference. [applause] for the last two years, we have seen this president and this congress under nancy pelosi and harry reid. [boos]

they have ignored as wall pursuing a radical, big spending big agenda budget. they have run up dead, deficits, and they have passed crushing legislation like this health care takeover. they have had their say. they have ignored us and ignored you. and guess what, in about 60 days the american people get their say, don't they? [applause] you bet they do. this is not a partisan statement because it applies to politicians in both parties who voted for big government, big spending, and more of the same. i do not often " donald trump, but every once in awhile he gets it right -- i do not often quote donald trump, but every once in awhile he gets it right and i think they are going to look at these politicians and say, "you

are fired." [applause] and what a record of this congress has. it is important for us to be reminded of what this congress has done on the policies. forget the personalities. on the policy. remember back in 2009, remember the first big bill? remember what it was? the stimulus bill. and $862 billion boondoggle. it was the political payoff of the highest order. we thought you thought that and we watched a website and events across the country. you spoke out, and in many ways, that was the match that with the tea party revolt. don't you think that? [applause] that stimulus bill is going to cost of almost every american family -- cost every american

family almost $10,000. it piled up even more debt. it jack of government to make it even more bitter. -- it jacked up government to make it even bigger. and we lost 2.7 million private- sector jobs. that is families that are hurting. that is people who deserve better from their politicians and are not getting it. and speaking of boondoggle, sometimes the vice-president is it, " figure. -- is a comical figure. but this vice president actually said to "time" magazine this week -- and i want to make sure we understand just how out of touch with reality sometimes the left is. with 2.7 million job losses during their stimulus bill, with all of the waste and fraud and

abuse that is clearly evident from the bill that is now being exposed to the american public, some of which the americans for prosperity foundation tv ads -- i hope you have seen these ads calling on them to correct the stimulus bill. but after all that, the vice president speaking of his stimulus bill actually said to "time" magazine, "now, this is where the fun starts." that is how out of touch he is. unemployment claims are on the rise. half a million, people are hurting. and these guys with their big spending bill, they are talking about where the fun starts? with all due respect, mr. vice president, i think the fun starts this november and will go there -- well beyond november as well. [applause] at americans for prosperity, we are proud to be hosting a spending revolt bus tour across our nation. our nation is really set -- our

mission is really simple, let's make sure american snow how their prosperity, their jobs, -- let's make sure americans know how their jobs, their prosperity, there will of life is threatened by this bill. and it was, to hear today? [cheers] you bet. we were traveling across wisconsin -- any wisconsin ites here today? [cheers] you bet. we were traveling across wisconsin and i said to my son, look, this town shares your name. and he said, about time someone in guay town after me. -- somebody named a town after me. [laughter]

but really, i was talking to a dairy farmer and he said that half of his time was trying to comply with the new red tape that these bureaucrats have piled on me. my cows do not go on vacation and i have to milk them every day. but he said about half his time. , think about that. that is a family farmer burning half his time not earning a living and providing jobs for folks, but try to keep up with bureaucrats in washington. and he said, you know what, the next year the death? comes back. and -- the death tax comes back. i'm not a rich man. it is going to go up to 55% for me. it then he turned to his son and

said he wants to leave his farm to his son, but he cannot do that at 55%. think about real americans paying the price for the agenda coming from the left. we are not just going to stop it. we're going to roll it back and take it our way. that is what this is about. [applause] we have another effort that we are calling "at november is coming." i like the sound of that. i just want to make sure that citizens think about november and beyond, that they send a message to their elected officials. here it is. if you, as a politician, continue in voting yes to more spending cuts might get to more government, yes to more job killing legislation, then we are going to vote no to you in november.

that is simply what november is about. [applause] and i just want to tell you this. there is a lot of talk from the left. and you saw the president attacked us. stay tuned. we will have fun with that. i will hold my tongue until tonight. then we will loosen up a little bit. but when he comes out and does that, i want to be clear -- i mentioned this earlier, but it is worth repeating. there should be no misunderstanding. the efforts of the americans for prosperity and the efforts of this movement, i want to be clear, it is not about any one election, any one political party. it is about freedom. it is about a new direction and our economic freedom. if that is what is about.

[applause] no matter who wins in november, the senate, the house, the state legislature, the governor -- all of the folks need to get out and we are working to educate people as well. but let's make sure that we, without any hesitation on january 2011 are there, right? let's make sure that we hold government accountable from day one. [applause] president reagan liked to say trust, but verify. i say, forget trust, let's just verify every cotton picking thing. [applause] when it comes to politicians, not in a very trusting mood these days. and one last thing, when we say verification and holding accountable, here is what we mean at americans for prosperity. we are not going to just tinker

next january. we're not going to just demand votes or to tweak and you're there or hold one man accountable. the we are going to repeal this. [cheers and applause] and if that fails, we will say, that is fine. we will demand a vote on breaking up chunks of this. because it creates hundreds of new agencies, boards and commissions. we will demand defunding votes on every single part of that legislation. [cheers and applause]

then we are going to say this. no more bailouts for anyone or any group at all. no more bailouts. [applause] it was embarrassing to see the congress, the house of representatives come back from their much-earned august recess. i'm sure they really needed it. they were exhausted from their multiple labors. it was embarrassing to see them come back to spend another $26 billion, this time for a bailout of the tune -- of their union friend. we are going to say, no more bailouts. the the left is attacking us and attacking you. i know that. i have said this before, but it bears repeating again. i know i have quoted two interesting people, one was

donald trump and the other was ronald reagan. the last will be don teague. i think it speaks a lot about where we are -- the last will be ghandi. i think it's because a lot about where we are. he was fighting the rule of his country. he said, first, they ignore you. then they ridicule you. then they attack you. and then you win. [cheers and applause] does that pattern sound familiar to you? [cheers] first, they ignored us. it was like we were the invisible man and the invisible woman at the cocktail party. they could pump -- bumped into laws and not even say hello. -- they could bump into us and not even say hello.

then that did not work. you kept getting stronger and the movement kept getting larger and bigger. then they ridiculed again. if oh, those guys, we did see them. they are not real. but you kept getting bigger. you did not go home, did you? we are americans. when we face a challenge, we fight. you kept getting bigger, and that is when the attacks began in earnest, right? there really vicious the gifted attacks and the racial attacks and the personal attacks -- bigoted attacks and the racial attacks and the personal attacks. we have all paid price for this. i know we have paid a price at americans for prosperity. but let me tell you, we are getting strong and if we keep fighting, we win. it is as simple as that. we will win. we are winning.

[applause] so, take heart, and i know you are. i want you to -- i want to thank you for coming to washington. i know you traveled long road, long flights from across the country. i talked to a guy from or in three or four hours ago that came all the way from the west coast. i saw a busload of north s.rolinian scot and i saw a little old lady that got off the bus and she showed me her afp t-shirt. we are going to take back our country in the next few years. thank you all very much. [applause] ♪

>> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the fox news commentator, and dick morris. ♪ >> thank you. i love you. you know, some people think i work for a particular tv station. the fact of the matter is, i feel like i worked for radio- free europe. [laughter]

trying to get that message out. there are certain rivals that we have to observe here. i am going to go through the terms i will use in this speech and i will let you silently figure out who i am talking about. i will refer to the big spenders in washington. i will refer to the head of the big spenders in washington. and i will refer to his female enforcer. [laughter] and then i will refer to those who opposed expanding in washington. and i want you to figure are who i mean because i cannot get any more specific than that. first, i want to tell you a true story that really typifies where we are as a country right now. when winston churchill was prime

minister of britain and he won the war, he lost the election and right after that and was thrown out of power. and the socialist labour party leader became the prime minister. and actively one day walked into the men's room in the house of commons and there was churchill's standing in the ural. when he saw him come in, he moved three urinals down. and he said, are you shy, winston? and winston said, no. it is just that whenever you see anything that is big and impressive, i you nationalize it. [laughter]

you cannot be too careful. we have had the recession. the recession is over. it is the cure to the recession that we are now experiencing. we have survived the disease, but we are succumbing to the cure. when barack -- i'm sorry. [laughter] when the leader of the big spenders in washington says that he is going to solve our economic problems by increasing spending, increasing borrowing, increasing the debt, and increasing the deficit it reminds me of the middle ages when they used to say to a patient, you have evil spirits inside you that are making you sick and we have to let the evil spirits out, so we are going to

remove half your blood. and then when they got sicker, they said, there are still more evil spirits in there and we have to take more blood. and when he died, they would say, see, i told you he had evil spirits in there all along. so, barack is -- how can i say that name? i will not lie, it is the president of the united states. barack says the two america, have a great recovery. i hope you turn athings around. but do not spend any money. do not buy anything. do not buy a flat screen tv or a car or by any products or a house. because i'm going to come in next year with tax increases that will curl your hair. you will find your tax increases rising up to 40% and on top of that i will impose a 4% medicare an?

and i will raise the capital gains tax and -- a 4% medicare tax and i will raise the capital gains tax and i will eliminate the maximum on social security taxes until your whole income gets taxed. but please, have a nice recovery. go spend money. you know, sometimes i feel with the stimulus package like a hog in chicago getting fat and up for the slaughter that night because of what he is planning to take back with tax increases. i remember when i worked with president clinton in the oval office and we work on cutting the deficit to solve our problems. balancing the budget to solve our problems. he would literally have a pad of paper on his lap and he would write the whole federal budget with all of his spending cuts. he had a photographic memory. it was an amazing thing to see.

that photographic memory, by the way, only related to his public life. [laughter] in his private life, he was a borderline amnesiac. [laughter] i remember once i was on the phone with betsey wright, his chief of staff, and she said, my roommate just went in to see governor clinton. and clinton said, these charges against me are ridiculous. i do not do this kind of thing. i do not act like that. i do not know half of these women. and the roommate came back to betty, and that he told me, you know, i think he forgot that we slept together. [laughter] but those spending cuts that new gingrich and others imposed had very little to do with balancing the budget.

we balance the budget in 18 months by cutting taxes. [applause] when we cut that capital gains tax, the revenues came in so rapidly that we had to revise our projections each week and we balanced the budget by 1988. and now, obama is raising the capital gains tax. that is going to retard the recovery. that is going to make it impossible for the country to recover and it will make it impossible for anything to bring the budget into balance. because when you raise taxes, you depress the economy. and you stop economic growth. you increase entitlements and food stamps and unemployment insurance and medicaid and welfare. the increase in entitlements overshadows any cut in spending you might prescribe. so, obama says, had a nice recovery, but don't spend money.

and if you are in the medical industry, do not create any new jobs there because i'm going to come down on you like a ton of bricks with a new regulations when i take over the health-care industry and the investments you are taking -- making in the mri for a cat scan or the new health clinic, you will not get reimbursed. and if you are in the energy sector, do not create any new jobs either because i'm going to hit you with a dramatic capt. trade legislation that will still raise the cost of production you will be forced to go overseas. you do not want to create any jobs while you are waiting for that shoe to drop on your head. and if you are the energy industry, do you create any new jobs -- and don't you create any new jobs. i'm going to do everything i can to retard domestic fossil full -- fossil fuel industry.

and do not create any micro jobs because if you invest in things like the new apple computer in someone's garage, if you do not pay it all back, the financial regulations give me the right to take over your bank, fire you, fire your board, fired or management, wipe out your shareholders equity, which is where your pension is, and sell off units of your bank. so, do not make any risky loans. but other than that, have a nice recovery. [applause] what obama does is he and the big spenders in washington use the economic crisis as an

excuse to increase government spending. the use of the uninsured as an excuse to take over health care. they use climate change as an excuse to regulate the manufacturing industry. they use the difficulties on wall street to -- as an excuse to take over the banking industry. they use the failure of jake -- of gm as an excuse to take over the auto industry. these are not the goal, but they are the means of the medicine he wants to apply. that is what he wants to do. i believe that the forces opposed to big spending will win the majority in both houses of congress in this election. [cheers and applause] those who opposed expanding are going to take the cell -- the

senate seat in delaware and indiana and north dakota. and they are going to throw out that big spender in arkansas. [cheers] and they're going to throw out the big spender in colorado. and they are going to throw out that big spender from nevada. [cheers and applause] i hope you guys like my ankle. . angle -- i hope you guys like my anklgle. [laughter] and the big spender from

washington has been looking for a safe district, but cannot find one outside of caracas and how ivana. and we will win those, too. and we will win in illinois and pennsylvania. and we will not stop there. the big spenders from oregon and new york and connecticut who think they are safe, i got a message for you. november is coming. [cheers and applause] and i believe 60 or 80 big spenders in washington are going to be sending change of address forms to the post office. [applause] and when i say november is coming, i feel like john the baptist. but i have got to tell you something. it is too damn late to repent. moon [applause]

now, when we, who oppose big spending, take back congress will face two fundamental challenges. and that is when the real work starts. we have got to make sure that the people who we elect the saying they will not spend more money and saying they will not raise our taxes keep their word. [applause] as i look out across the tables here, i see a bunch of bottles water -- bottles of water. do not drink the water cure. it makes you do -- do not drink the water here. it makes you do weird things. [laughter] the first thing is going to be that the states are going to come begging to washington for a

bailout. [boos] and we are going to say no. we are going to say hell no. you made this problem. you created it. yugo sold it for yourself. [applause] -- you go solve it for yourself. [applause] and then these big states will find they are running out of money and the bond community will not lend them any more money because they know they cannot get paid back. what is going to happen then, it is like breeze coming to the imf. they will come to washington and say, guarantee our debt. this time, we will say something a little different. we will say to them, we will create a procedure to declare bankruptcy at the state level. but you will only be able to get

the protection of bankruptcy if aggregate,o an alanul, your contractual obligations to the state of the union. [applause] goodbye, nea, goodbye ftiu, goodbye dc-07. hello, sovereignty of the people. [applause] the next big fight is going to come after that, when everybody in the universe as we have to bring down the deficit.

ronald reagan ran a deficit so he could force liberals to stop spending money. barack obama runs a deficit so he can force conservatives to vote for higher taxes. are we going to do that? no! and we have got to make sure we elect congressmen and senators that are going to stand up to that and say no and. but when the bond markets as you have got to end the fed says you have got to end the european union says you have got to end nobel laureates to say you have got to, they say no. because what is at stake here is not just a few extra bucks from our wallets. is whether we lock in the spending. he raised the spending control of our government from 30% to

40%. and the only solution is to bring the 40% down to 30% and not raise the taxes. because if you have an elephant in the middle of your living room, you cannot do business. if you have a jackass in the middle of your living room, you cannot do business. [cheers] ♪ it will be the same time next year and ladies and gentlemen. we will be back here and pressuring the people we helped elect to oppose expanding -- big spending and we will be telling them, you do not tread on us. ["ain't that america"] ♪

there is going to be a government shutdown, just like in 1995 and in 1996. but we are going to win it this time and i will be on your side. thank you. ♪ [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the north carolina state director, dallas woodhouse. ["ain't that america"] ♪ >> whoo! how are you doing out there? are one good- looking crowd. i know we have about 2300 people out here today, but let me give a shout out to about five north

carolinians who are here with me today. [cheers] and let me say a special thank you to all those who crawled on buses in the middle of the night to drive across this country. and if you got on a plane or a train or an automobile or a bus, we are so glad that you are with us because we will make a difference. i am a lucky guy because i get the chance to speak on behalf of the state directors. we have 31 state chapters now. the we have some great state directors and the important thing you need to remember is we get up every day and we are dedicated not only to the principle of limited government and free markets, but the fact that we owe our jobs and responsibilities to you. we work for you. i have got to tell you, you do a lot of things as a director. use a lot of things.

and sometimes you get it wrong. i will tell you about when i got it wrong and my friend from north carolina needed -- need to write it down and tell my wife, because she will never believed i admitted it. we ran out on these bus tours and i gave these speeches and i really believed that this health care bill would not help one sick person, would not save one sick person's life. i've got to tell you, i was wrong. did anyone come with us the day we did the last stand for health care on capitol hill? we came out and made a last stand. on that day we had an accident. we have an activist that fell on the capitol steps. he fell back and cut his eye. we took him down the road to george washington hospital. it turns out his i was ok. they gave him an mri, a cat

scan, and found at the brain mass unrelated to his fall. it was a serious situation. we immediately got him home to north carolina. he went to his doctor and is being treated and is in good shape. the real fact is that there is one person out there who is alive today because he happened to come to washington to fight obama care and happened to slip on the steps. [applause] >> as state directors, we do some crazy things. we load of buses in the middle of the night and we do these bus tours. do you know about november's coming bus tour? people like me have got to find places to take those. i have done a little part in north carolina. i think this is a great place to

do this stop and i stepped into the nastiest pile of fire and you have seen. my understanding is that if you are in the north, you do not know what fire ants are. they are nasty little bugs that get on you and they make you itch and it is terrible. fire ants are very much like liberals. you see, fire ants and bury themselves in the sand. they do not produce anything. they provide nothing worthwhile and sent to come out and sustain those of us who do. -- and simply come out and sting those of us who do. [applause] i am in north carolina boy, but

like a lot of americans, you ain't going to steny but once. sting men't going to but once. we are going to wipe out those fire ants and i have the weapon to wipe out those economic liberal fire ants and i'm staring right at them. [applause] we're going to do it with you. last year i asked you to help me do something. i ask you to help me signed up friends for american prosperity. did anybody remember that from last year? that will not be good enough this year. i need you to do more. if you go to thisnovember.com we have a way to talk about the issues. i need everyone in this room to

promise me that they will go register 10 people on november iscoming.com. and get them registered end to the polls. can everyone do that for me? [applause] you can also goes on to walked neighborhoods and talk to your neighbors and educate them about the issues. you need to make a difference. can you promise when you go back home that you will help find 10 people to sign up to novemberis no space coming.com? -- novemberiscoming.com? i need you to help me find 10

conservatives and get them to the elections on voting day. can you get 10 people to the polls on election day? can you do that? [cheers] i'm going to say something that you will hear a lot of people say going into these elections. they will say, well, we cannot go back. ladies and gentleman, i am ready to go back. i am ready to go back to the time when the health care decisions were made by me and my doctor, not by a bureaucrat in washington. i am ready to go back to a time when the elected officials who worked for me, not work to me over. -- when the elected officials worked for me, not work to me

over. i am ready to go back to a time when they were not simply try to raise my electricity prices. please, let me go back. i do not even have to pass go because i know that obama already took the $200. please, help me go back. it will you help me sign up at novemberiscoming.com? ladies and gentlemen, you can help me put out the liberal fire ants. every day between now and november is a challenge for us. if we work hard and we talked to our neighbors, we can go back to a more prosperous future where we in -- we defend the right of every individual to have liberty.freedoand god bless you. [applause]

>> the following video is brought to you by our co- sponsor, americans for prosperity. ["jaws theme"] ♪ [boos] [boos]

[cheers] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome americans for prosperity foundation board member, art post. ♪ >> thank you. americans for prosperity is the leading grassroots organization in america. and it is the leading organization because of you here in this room. and because of your family, friends, and citizens back home. so, we've not thank you. [applause] americans for prosperity is non- partisan. it does not and will not endorse candidates. americans for prosperity does educate the public, the people of this great nation, on the public policies to succeed in

the american dream. it will ensure prosperity for future generations. americans for prosperity believes in a constitutional government and respect and relies on your individual freedom as the most just policy toward the freedom. critics on the left and mainstream media disagree. they do not think conservative policy, the mid to government -- they do not think you can govern yourselves. history has shown them wrong. ronald reagan has shown them wrong. [applause] and now, current history in the making by gov. bob mcdonnell of virginia is showing them wrong.

[cheers and applause] you may recall in 2008 candidate barack obama carried the state of virginia by seven percentage points. just one year later, bob mcdonnell, a conservative candidate for governmentgovernod a sweep of all the statewide offices, the most votes for the governor of the state of virginia. [applause] you may recall that the "washington post" said that bob mcdonnell could not govern. and indeed, following his inauguration, he was immediately met with an historic budget shortfall, a deficit of $1.8 billion for 2010, left by the prior administration, and expected to raise to $4.2

billion by 2012. when you see trillions of dollars in national shortfall, that is a major -- a $4.2 billion is a major challenge for the virginia governorship. through putting in place a hiring freeze and making conservative rest -- revenue estimates, and incentivizing state employees to save you, the taxpayers, dollars, he was able to turn a one $0.80 trillion dollar deficit into a $400 million -- he was able to turn a $1.8 trillion deficit into a $400 million surplus. [applause] virginia was one of the only states to have a surplus this year, and gosh, we wish we could have that at a national level.

governor tim kaine proposed a tax increase. governor mcdonald took tax increases off the table. they worked with legislators and to balance the budget by cutting spending, not by raising taxes. governor mcdonald's conservative policies and reforms did not stop with taxes. he has opened the way for more charter schools in virginia. he has established a commission on government reform to find savings and ways to make government smaller and more efficient. he passed an economic to find newpasspackage

jobs. virginia has added the second- highest number of new jobs of any state, trailing only texas. adding new jobs. [applause] in august, virginia was named the most pro-business state in america. [applause] now, i must confess, i have a major problem with governor mcdonald. i am from north carolina. [laughter] he is taking jobs away from us. he has shown how to balance a budget and commit to public service, a leading north carolina and this administration in the dust. "we need is more of a mcdonald's all over the united states. [applause]

ladies and gentlemen, please welcome governor bob macdonald. ♪ [applause] >> thank you. thank you very much. what a terrific meeting of americans for prosperity. it is back to be -- it is great to be back with 2500 freedom and prosperity loving americans. thank you for coming to celebrate. it sure is good to have a pope on the board of directors. as a practicing catholic, i really appreciate that. i want to thank all of the other leaders here for americans for prosperity, including the visionary leader for this

organization. what a terrific job he has done over the last six years. [applause] from a vision in your mind in a new york apartment to 32 state chapters and were over 1 million people, that is great work. thank you for your leadership. i also want to say it is great to see fred, rich, and so many of the other leaders. everytime i see my friend on fox news he is in a hot air balloon with a sign that reads, "no new taxes." is great to see that on a regular basis. it is great when the hot air is above you and not in you. you forto thank all of gimp being the premier leaders and making america a better nation.

i was really disappointed not to see my friends keep older men or rachael mallow here. i thought we would be it -- ke ith olberman or rachel maddow here. i thought we would be able to continue our fun conversation. i watched her the other night for 15 minutes and i had to go back to fox news. i could not take it. i understand there are a few virginians here. [applause] i am so delighted that virginia was one of the first a fp chapters in america. i really am proud of what virginians have done. i hope those of you know your history are not surprised. virginia has played a fundamental role for the last

403 years since that cross was planted at cape henry in virginia beach in 16 07. we're still playing a pivotal role today -- we hope we are still playing a pivotal role today. think about george washington, who understood the limits of power, and rightly turned down another term as president. they wanted to make him king, but he said no, that is what we just fought against. the first two governors of virginia, patrick henry, who understood that freedom was so precious that he would sacrifice his very life. the second governor of virginia, thomas jefferson, who said a wise and frugal government was the object we should try to obtain and that government should not take from the mouth of labor the bread that was burned. that is the legacy of a virginia. -- the bread that was earned.

that is a legacy of of virginia. by the way, va., thank you for hiring me. i have five kids. i needed the job. i hope i have helped you to realize that conservatives can win. [applause] but let me talk and paraphrase for just a minute. i will talk to you about a tale of two cities. one is richmond, va., and what is washington, d.c. let me start with taxes and spending, and debt and deficits. right now, we have an absolutely unsustainable level of spending in the nation's capital, $13.23 trillion. remember when billions was a lot of money? $13.23 trillion. the largest tax increases in

american history are coming on january 1st we cannot sustain the level of taxation and spending in this country without becoming a debtor nation, and i know you do not want to do that. let's look at virginia. as art said, i came into office to serve as governor with a $1.20 billion deficit, and we balanced the budget. we cut $4.2 billion in spending, going back to 2007 levels with no tax increases. just last week, i was able to amass a four hundred $3 billion surplus because of the principals -- $840 i'm3 -- a $ 403 million surplus because of the principles of governing in the virginia.

you really creates opportunities for citizens -- who really create opportunities for citizens to achieve their dreams? is it government, or is it free enterprise? i think we have seen the answer to that, with the government taking over everything from gm, do health care services, to the student loans. we believe that it is small businesses to create 70% of new jobs. we are trying to inspire the visionary entrepreneur to create jobs and opportunities in the future. when it comes to regulations, we put together a panel to try to review every one of those regulations. we have 300 pages plus in regulations out of virginia's administrative code in washington, d.c., we get 40,000-50,000 pages of new regulations every year. should your vision of america be more like richmond, va., or

washington, d.c.? i thought so. i am in the right room, and that is really good. when it comes to health care, washington has this idea that the remaining seven of the health care system should be taken over by it the federal government. in richmond, we believe the constitution still mean something, and we were the first state in the nation to file suit against the federal government over their health care policy. [applause] at the end of the day, it is not about health care, it is about what our founders believe in the united states constitution. the federal government cannot tell you that you must buy a product or a service, and if you do not, you will be punished. this is an amazingly important constitutional question that our

founders would believe is worthy of litigating and determining what is right. that leads me to the final differences. we believe that the 10th amendment, the forgotten amendment, still means something in america. [applause] you remember those great virginians, mr. matheson and mr. mason and others to put together that -- mr. madison and mr. mason and others who put together that constitution? limiting the power of the federal government was really the linchpin in passage of the united states constitution. we have to rely on it and revive it to restore this view of federalism in america. i ask you, do you want this country to be more like a virginia, or the policies in washington, d.c.? by the power invested in me as governor of virginia, i declare that you are all virginians. thank you. [applause]

so, let me just say that all of you are here because you care about our nation. you and i have the privilege of living in the greatest country let the world has ever known. [applause] but you also know democracy is not a spectator sport. there are men and women in uniform now in afghanistan and iraq, and many other countries around the world, who are defending your liberties, your way of life, and the dancing because of freedom for people they do not even know because of our -- and advancing the cause of freedom for people they do not even know because of our love of freedom in america. [applause] over the next couple of months, i asked you to honor the legacy of our standards as the ones who signed -- our founders as the

ones who signed the declaration of independence. honor the men and women wearing the uniform right now. face without works is dead, according to the bible, and -- faith without wirtz is dead, according to the bible -- faith without works is dead, according to the bible, and the same is true in politics. i call you to action. when you leave here, i hope you leave here and you go back and make a commitment to fight for these principles back,, because there is an awful lot that is at stake here in this country.

when i was fortunate enough to win the attorney general's race or four years ago, i won by 300 votes. let me tell you what that means. that was won eight of one vote per precinct. i never met a 1/8 voted, but i think he is a pretty small guy. every phone call you make, every door you knock on, every person you talk to about what is at stake in america and why the system of federalism and limited government is the right way to go, and why it is important to the solvency of our future and our country, and why it is important to our kids and grandkids, every one of those contacts is important. i am honored to be here speaking to all of the patriots, americans for prosperity. keep up the good work. godspeed. have a great convention. thank you very much. [applause]

♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome american for prosperity 's vice president of policy. [applause] ♪ >> how is everyone doing it today? is this not an exciting time for our country? is this not an exciting time to turn things around and get back on the right track? $787 billion on a stimulus bill did not put anyone back to work. the health care bill is going to cost as $one trillion, and they

still have not given up on the cap and trade act and an attempt to control every aspect of our lives. it is serious stuff. it is serious stuff. everything we have heard in this election year and the issue's going forward with the next congress, but i want to talk about what is still on the table this year. there are a lot of things coming up already this year in congress. i am talking about the september session. congress is coming back next month. what are they coming back to do? first of all, they are going to consider an oil spill response bill, and this bill will have almost nothing to do with oil spill response. it is going to be about raising taxes and putting more regulations on energy in this country. it will involve a $2 per barrel tax on oil production, of course only domestic. that is about $0.10 per gallon at the pump.

the senate version, it is a $0.49 tax, not quite as extreme, but get this. the name of the tax hike is, "restoring oil liability trust fund solvency." this is a built about -- this is supposed to be a bill about making bp peg, but it is going to result -- making bp pay, but it is going to result in higher taxes for all of us. they also want to block as out of the oil in nevada. we need to stop this bill. the other thing they're going to

do is try to play class warfare games in an election year with our taxes. the biggest tax hike in the history of the world is scheduled to occur on january 1st. barack obama and the democratic leadership want to let it occur, and they want to use as a political football. what do i mean by that? they want to say, republicans, you'd better go along, or else we're going to raise taxes on everybody else. you're the raising taxes on? you are the horrible rich? anyone who would employ people, investors, anyone who might die. they're not talking about taxes -- they are talking about taxes on investment, capital gains, the death tax, and taxes on

small businesses. very simple message on this. we are not going to play class warfare games. this is not the time to raise taxes on anyone. every bit of those tax cuts needs to be extended and made permanent. and i will tell you what. if the democrats say, we refuse to do that, then as conservatives, we need to say, that is fine, because we are going to come back next congress, when we are in charge, and it retroactively extend all of the tax cuts for everyone, and if barack obama wants to play class warfare games, we will hold him responsible. [applause] now, i wish i could tell you that the threat would end after the september session, after october when we have the election, but they will not. the 2010 threats, threats for this year, will continue after

the election. they're planning a lame-duck session after the reelection but before the new congress has been sworn in, that in the words of the chairman of the senate budget committee, will be one of the most significant lame-duck sessions in the history of the united states. what is he talking about when he says that? well, john kerry tells us they are going to do cap and trade in a lame duck session. he told bloomberg that members would feel free and obliterated to vote for cap and trade, free and liberated by having already lost their elections and no longer having to listen to the american people. harry reid has said that happened trade will happen in the lame duck session. senator harkin from iowa has said they will try to maneuver something into the lame duck session.

the deficit commission is going to report, and they are going to recommend massive tax hikes, probably a new national sales tax of some type, all kinds of major changes to entitlement programs, and republican judd gregg of new hampshire, and democrat kent conrad of north dakota, have said that they should take up the september 1st recommendations and vote on them by christmas. we're looking at a replay of health care, where they're going to legislate right up until christmas. i have good news. we're going to stop a lame duck, and i will tell you how. we are going to stop the lame duck a couple of ways. first of all, we are going to let every moderate and liberal republican know that they better not help any democrats by going

against them in a lame duck session. i have big news to report on that front. we have just heard confirmation from susan collins office that she is against any lame duck policy changes. she will not help achieve a national election. that is a great sign. we have to -- she will not help a national election. that is a great sign. we have to convince all republicans to get on board. there are some special elections in delaware, illinois and west virginia. if you have been following these races, you might know that the candidate who has already been nominated in illinois is a moderate-liberal republican. the candidate in delaware has a very tough primary challenge from a conservative, but a

likely candidate is probably the most liberal republican in the house. you voted for cap and trade. you voted for the disclose a act, the bailout. but i have good news. mike castle has taken a firm public stand that he will oppose any policy changes in a lame duck session. we have that commitment in writing. we certainly hope that the democrats in these races will make the same commitment, will promise not to support his lame- duck agenda. we encourage all candidates to make that promise. but we need to consider very seriously the position that those guys have taken, because those races have huge implications. what is the third thing we can do? we have got to put all of the pressure in the world on democrats who are up for election in 2012.

anything that happens during the lame duck session is the first shot fired in the 2012 cycle. that is why we are on the radio in virginia right now telling jim webb that he better not vote for caps and trade during a lame duck session of congress. [applause] all of the other 2012 democrats, especially kent conrad, ben nelson, they need to know that these are the first votes of the 2012 cycle, and if they do not like what happens to their 2010 friends, they cannot be part of a lame duck session. we need to sway the moderate- liberal republicans, educate voters, and put pressure on the 2012 democrats. we're going to stop the lame

duck threat. we are going to stop them cold. we are going to over the congress next year and get to work rolling back all of the damage that has already been done to this country. thank you very much. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome radio host and fox news contributor, herman cain. [applause] >> thank you very much. what a wonderful reception. i am thrilled to be here, but

even more thrilled that you are here. let it be borne in mind that the tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching their goals. the tragedy lies in having no goals to reach for. [applause] it is not a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity to have no dreams. my father walked off of a farm, a small dirt farm, at the age of 18, literally with just the clothes on his back to pursue

his american dream. one of my dad's dreams was to give his two sons a little bit better start in life than he had, and he did, just like your parents wanted to give you a little bit better something. i have the same dream for my kids and my grandkids, and you have that same dream for your kids and your grandkids, and that is to give them a little bit better start in life. but in order for us to do that we have some work to do, because the american dream is under attack by the liberals in washington, d.c. we have some work to do. i happen to believe that we will

take back our government, not just starting on november 2nd, but starting today and every day leading up till november 2nd, and november 2nd will be a new beginning in an era of power in which our people keep our elected officials accountable. [applause] in some parts of the country they call that holding their feet to the fire. in order for us to do that, we have to take back our government, because the liberals have clearly hijack our government in washington, d.c., and there are three things we need to do. number one, stay united. stay united. they are trying to divide us. they are trying to divide us.

they tried to divide us with class warfare, demonizing big business, demonizing people who work for a living, demonizing people you're in the 52% that still pay taxes, and demonizing anyone who does not agree with their policies. if they do not righted a vitas' with class warfare, -- if they do not try to divide us with class warfare, they try to divide us with a name calling. i got a call on my radio show. in a black american conservative. -- i am of black american conservative. [applause] i have been called all of the

dirty names. i have been called oreo, sellout, racist. one night, but the caller -- i took a caller on my radio show. he told me i was shameless. i asked him to explain. "it is shameless for you as a black man to disagree and criticize our black president." sir, you may have aion problem comprehending what i'm about to tell you, but there are two things i would like to share with you, so please, try to open your mind.

first, there are some black people, and white people, and brown people, who can speak for themselves." [applause] i know that is difficult for him to understand. i said, secondly, sir -- i try to be polite. i try to keep this family friendly. i said, secondly, sir, when we reached the point that we cannot criticize our elected leaders, we are no longer a republic like the founding fathers intended, we are a republic of tyranny, and some of us are not going to let that happen. [applause] aint gonna happen on our watch.

aint gonna happen. [applause] so i am shamelessly criticizing a black president. secondly, we have to stay informed. remember first, they will try to divide us, and they will try all the tricks in the book. secondly, stay informed. the uninformed people in this country are destroying this country. now, they're not all stupid, just all uninformed. some of them believe that the stimulus bill is working. it is not. some of them actually believe that the health care reform bill will actually work. it will not.

some of them actually believe that if you raise taxes you generate more revenue. it will not, but the uninformed, they believe this malarkey. one of our responsibilities in this fight, in this journey, in this road in november, and this road to take back our government, one of our responsibilities is not only to be informed and to know the facts, but we must share the facts with those who will listen. we will not save everybody, but we can save the stable in order to save this country. stay united. do not let them divide you. they want to call you racist. they want to call the citizen movement racist. they want to call americans for prosperity racist. they want to call the tea party racist. and anybody who does not get in line like a thug, they want to call you and name.

secondly, stay informed. know your facts, because to paraphrase, liberals cannot handle the facts. they do not like the facts. thirdly, this is what we have to do. stay inspired. just like my dad was inspired to walk off of that farm to pursue his american dream, not somebody else's, his. they want you to believe that we cannot take back our government. they want you to believe that they have got such a stranglehold on this government that we may as well give up and forget about it. no, stay inspired. let me tell you what inspires me, what keeps me inspired, what causes me to travel all over the country when i am not on the radio in order to be able to help encourage people to stay in this fight. one of the first things that inspires people -- inspires me,

my mom and my dad. my mom also grew up on a small farm. they taught us to believe in god, believe in ourselves, and to believe in this country no matter what the conditions are or were. we are still the greatest country in the world, and that is what my parents taught me. [applause] and for those who have bought into this malarkey that america is not an exceptional country, i have a news flash for you. america is an exceptional country, and it is going to stay that way. [applause]

another inspiration. the other thing that inspires me is what i know that god almighty has done for me. many of you know the back in 2006 i was diagnosed with stage for cancer. i had to go through chemotherapy, double surgery, chemotherapy again. when i got ready to go to develop my treatment plan, some very inspiring things happened along the way. this kind of gave me a hint that maybe god was not ready for me to go yet. state for cancer means that you have cancer in at least two -- stage four cancer means that you have cancer in at least two organs of the body. when i asked my first surgeon what stage four men, she said,

that is as bad as it gets. about a second opinion. -- i got a second opinion. he agreed that it is as bad as it gets. but when i contacted the second surgeon, his name was dr. lord. i said, things are starting to look a little bit better. when i went to the cancer center in houston for my treatment, and was given an orientation by a lady whose last name was grace. i said, "as in an amazing grace ?" she said, "that is right." when i was assigned a surgeon, i said, "doctor, you have to take

out 70% of my liver. you have to take out 30% of my colon. how are you going to do that without cutting the open twice?" he said, "i am going to do an incision in the shade of the j." i said, "you mean like j-e-s-u- s?" he said, "that is right. " otter years later, as in cancer for eight -- four years later, i am cancer free because god said not yet. not yet. [applause]

for those liberals elected to and the united states of america into europe, -- for those liberals who would like to turn the united states of america into europe, not yet. we have a little document, the constitution of the united states. and if you can turn to the declaration of independence and get past the ideals called life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and keep reading, you will find that it says that if any government tries to destroy those ideals, you have to alter and abolish it. we have to alter and abolish this. we have some altering and abolishing to do.

it is real simple. we are going to take back our government because we the people, not the politicians, are still in charge of this country. [applause] ♪ we are america peo. not the people in washington d.c.. we, the people. [applause] >> the following video is brought to buy our co-sponsor, americans for prosperity.

>> well, herman cain. thank you. ok, first session is over. let me give you four quick items. sessions begin at 2:45 p.m. we will bump that back just a little bit. there are three different tracks. you have a broad a way of choices. take advantage of that. we will have discussions of the lame duck session, energy policy, a tea party activists.

you can become an even better activist. yet these sites. -- hit these sites. secondly, we have a phone banking room. you will be able to make calls to key citizens across this country from home using our data base. it is an exciting project. if you want more information, go to the phone banking room. the reception starts at 5:30 p.m. those details are also in your program. the dinner starts at 7:00. doors will open at 6:30 p.m. it is crucial to whether the name tag you got when you registered. keep up for the registration -- keep that for the reception. it is important. thank you very much. we will see you tonight. [applause]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> be sure to join us tomorrow for a pair of rallies here in the nation's capital.

at 10:00 a.m. eastern, glenn hosts a rally on the steps of the lincoln capital. after that, al sharpton will hold a rally. tomorrow's rally at the lincoln memorial is hardly the first to take place at the historic venue. one of the most famous is martin luther king's i have a dream speech. we will feature that speech as well as look at his legacy this weekend. that will get underway tomorrow on c-span 3. >> we have plenty of people in government that all of us can talk to inside d.c., but what we need to do is get out of the beltway and hear from our constituents. >> while congress is in recess, members have been holding town hall meetings in their

districts. go to the c-span library to see what you're congress member has said. it is all available and free on your computer any time. >> this c-span network provides coverage of politics, public affairs, nonfiction books and american history. it is all available to you on television, radio, online, and on social media networking site. find our content any time through the c-span video library. we take c-span on the road with our digital us local content vehicle, bringing our resources to your community. washington your way, the c-span network, now available in more than 1 million homes. created by cable, provided as a public service. and now panelist, including representatives from the military, a state department congress, and various journalists will talk about the situation in afghanistan.

? asked about -- questions were asked about the effect of the conflict on the women of afghanistan. >> we have a terrific panel today to talk about what is happening in afghanistan and what the alternatives are for the american people. we will then take questions f rom the audience.

former congressman tom andrews is currently running the "win without war" coalition in washington. i do not know how many of you are familiar with afghanistan. a few of you have been there, but there are probably also people in the room who could not name any of the adjoining countries. could you talk a little bit about the history and geography of afghanistan, just a tiny bit so that people get a sense of what we are talking about? >> afghanistan is located in central asia between iran, pakistan, and the central asian states. its location is of some of its strategic importance to the united states. the terrain there is mountainous. you have a vast desert.

the most important thing to understand is that the population and people are very divided. it is divided among ethnic groups, regionally, between urban and rural. you see almost a red state, please state phenomenon there. secular and religious. the tribal system really does not exist anymore after 35 years of constant war. it has been decimated, but there is an intra-tribal conflict. on top of that, this is one of the poorest countries we have ever seen. we have pumped $50 billion or $60 billion of development aid interest, which has actually

exacerbated the situation rather than improving it. one thing to take away is the human capacity, particularly compared to other parts of the world. it is nearly nonexistent. there is literacy of less than 10% among men, less than 1% among women. there are people who cannot count. after nine years of involvement there, the life expectancy is still only 43 years of age. men take additional lives if they can afford to, not just because -- additional wives if they can afford to, not just because of the tradition, but because there is a one in four chance that your wife will die in childbirth. one out of five children do not make it to their fifth birthdays. that is somewhat of a background.

when you talk about nation- building, you talk about during combat operations or reconstruction, or however you want to describe an hour operation in afghanistan, that gives you a little bit of background about what we're dealing with. >> view of the afghanistan multiple times -- you have been to afghanistan multiple times -- >> once. >> can you talk about what influence your decision to leave? >> i was actually in iraq twice , and i went to afghanistan in april of last year. i was a football for the state department. for my first assignment, we were in an area along the pakistan border.

i came to find that what our narrative for being there, our purpose for being there, was not matching up with the reality i saw on the ground. i came to understand a 35 year- old civil war that we rank aged in. -- we were engaged in. the people we were fighting and killing every day or members of the taliban not because of some ideological cause. i was moved down to the south where i worked daily with the governor there. same type of things. it reminded me so much of our involvement in iraq,

particularly in 2006-2007. i was with the state department reconstruction team. in 2004-2005, the guidance was not to work with the tribal leaders. we would work through a new central government system. the iman actually worked quite a bit through the tribal government because that is how he maintained his power. they told us we could patronize them, condescend to them, give them the koran as a gift, but not work with them. i saw the same sort of thing in afghanistan, refusing to realize the reality of the situation we're in, and refusing to do the steps necessary to alleviate the situation, particularly addressing the taliban as one, monolithic terrorist group, when

in reality, it is a broad coalition of local groups, many of them have legitimate political grievances that could be addressed. as a matter of conscience, i said i could no longer take part in the leadership strategy for conducting this war, and so i resigned. >> was our objective when we went into afghanistan, and why are we still there? >> the ticket abroad constructs, in a theoretical sense, -- the two broad constructs, in a theoretical sense -- and i just got an e- mail that my oldest returned from afghanistan about two minutes ago. that is good news.

[applause] my youngest will get back next month, so it is not theoretical for our family. our first involvement in afghanistan was under the guise of counter-terrorism. we went in and with a small force, technologically empowered. we had a special ops officer on a horse with a wooden saddle bringing in b-52 bombers from louisiana. we all loved the vision of this guy being heavily technologically empowered. we went in there to clear out al-qaeda end to martial local support to defeat the taliban. that has since morphed into any

number of things, but as we took our eye off of that ball and focused on iraq, we turned afghanistan into an economy of force operation while our main effort was iraq. at the same time, we allowed ourselves over the two administrations to slide into the counterinsurgency approach to our operation. in the run-up to the december speech that the president gave at west point, there were two competing approaches. you had the vice-president, who wanted to remain in a counter- terrorism note, and you had a lot of others who wanted to push the president into a counterinsurgency approach. the end result was, ok, we will

give this counterinsurgency approach shot. people kept using the numbers of military deployed, 100,000 military deployed, when in fact, the counterinsurgency approach is far less about military and far more about the rest of the executive branch and the ability of the united states to deploy expertise and host of other arenas. so, the department of defense saluted this, and we have 95,000 now deployed, yet the entirety of our executive branch has been able to put 320 civilians outside of kabul in a country of 29 million. now, counterinsurgency, as cr ned by general chris dodmet

as defined by general mcchrystal, is going reasonably well. the hold afghanistan forces and build and transition afghan government is problematic. >> could you explain in a sentence or two of what the difference is between counterinsurgency and counter- terrorism, for the people who do not spend all day working on this stuff? >> counterinsurgency is mission heavy, protecting the population to install a viable government.

counter-terrorism is a military approach to doing business, and it is to kill people who would attack the united states. >> so when we went then, we are talking about doing counter- terrorism against al-qaeda. could you talk a little bit about how many al-qaeda operatives are in afghanistan, according to the best estimates we have? >> our best estimates are between 50-100 al-qaeda operatives, in afghanistan, and somewhere between 300 + in neighboring pakistan. >> so we are spending billions of dollars per year in afghanistan on between 50-100 al-qaeda operatives? >> that is correct. >> just checking.

clearly, that does not seem like an efficient use of resources. do we have the resources to be doing counterinsurgency? >> when you do the military math, the counterinsurgency manual that came out about three years ago that was instrumental in driving how we went about business in iraq, we were dealing with 40. the american equivalent is about 500,000. not all soldiers are equipped the way u.s. forces are. we do not have the number of military forces. when you look executive branch and the way washington operates, afghanistan is an example of this functionality that resides

in washington. you have some types of excellence in washington, but we have a national security architecture right now that was designed in 1947, that served us but during the cold war com, since the fall of the berlin wall, we have not adapted to the environment we have today. we need agricultural people to deploy overseas to assist u.s. forces in an agricultural mission. the agricultural department is not equipped to deploy resources overseas. so, what we have done is develop an agricultural battalion. these are uniformed military who have agricultural expertise, drawn from the reserve component, to do what, rightfully, department of agriculture should do, not because they do not want to do it, but we have not given them

the money or the capacity to deploy to do that. . . toward being able to redevelop itself in that moment was lost because the administration decided to go into iraq and use that as a show piece for

american power. so i think there was a tendency, president obama, when he campaigned, he was very clear that he thought iraq was the wrong war. afghanistan was the right war, and he meant it. but i think there has been kind of an overcorrection here to say, ok, we just let all of these resources and all this money and all this manpower into afghanistan, we can set things right. as matt was saying, it's just really not the case. we were actually making the problem worse by flooding the country and we're increasing the corruption. >> i tend to disagree with the assertion that we took our eye off afghanistan and went to iraq. we certainly did. i don't think if we put more troops in afghanistan in 2006-2005, it would have really mattered. if you look at the forces in afghanistan had to conduct in 2006, it is a steady increase of foreign troops and afghan

army and police in the southern and eastern parts of the country. since 2006 as we increased the government's presence, the american troops, we put 12,000 canadian, dutch and others in 2005 and 2006 to do a counterinsurgency approach. on google, the commanding general in 2006 and 2005 in afghanistan, he talks about how we are doing. we just fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the conflict in afghanistan. we created an afghan government in 2001-2002 that was a centralized government that excluded large parts of the population. we don't understand the aspect of the taliban have gained support since 2005 not because they're out there wearing sandwich boards and handing out fliers and pamphlets.

the troops were not from those areas show up, people go to the taliban to get support to resist them. i tend to disagree with the idea that if we had done what we're doing now six years ago, we would be in a better spot. we would be in the same spot, just earlier. >> i don't disagree about the troops. it's more than just a question of troops. it has to do with attention and diplomatic resources and the level of administration and u.s. government engagement with different aid organizations. you just saw that really drop off in 2002. you're right, it wasn't a question of just troops. it was across the board a slow turning of attention away from afghanistan and focusing on iraq. >> so there have been some studies that have been done about how much of the violence that is taking place in afghanistan right now is directly caused by our presence there. that is, there is some component of the violence in afghanistan that is because of conflicts inside of afghanistan

and some component of the violence in afghanistan that is a resistance to the presence of foreign troops. you i think, matt, are familiar with some of that research. can you gave us an estimate of roughly the violence in afghanistan they think is being caused by our presence there? >> well, in terms of the overall violence, i'm not quite sure i know. there has been research specifically related to suicide bombings and how they tend to correlate to foreign occupations. there are some 80% of the suicide bombings, he estimates 80% to 90% are a result of a foreign occupation. 80% are directed at u.s. and foreign troops. 90% of those suicides are carried out by afghans. they are not carried out by foreign fighters as we saw in iraq. >> so if we look at the gross domestic product in afghanistan, we talked a little

bit about the fact that we're spending $150 billion a year on our military presence in afghanistan. how does that compare to the g.d.p. for afghanistan on a whole? >> roughly about $14 billion a year. when i talk about it earlier, there is no industrial base there. the only item, the only industry that has an actual value chain from being able to get credit to purchase fertilizer and to pay for labor and a ready and available market is the opium trade, the poppies. that's the only industry that has a value chain. everything else, the components aren't there and won't be there for decades. and you're certainly not going to get development without having a degree of stability. there is not a lot going for afghanistan to say in a very

simple contracts way. -- cras way. >> a g.d.p. of $14 billion and we're spending $150 billion on the military presence there while we're laying off american teachers because we can't afford to pay them, correct? so that begs a question which is, and general eaton, may you can take this one briefly, why are we still there? >> there are two questions that a lot of people are asking -- can this war be won, and what does that mean? and what it means is morphing over time. as we see the level of difficulty, the what it means answer is becoming far broader and we are willing to approach afghanistan in the same fashion as we changed our view of what victory in iraq meant, that we may be dealing with actors

today that we may not have wanted to deal with a couple of years ago. and the second question that darcy is getting after is the -- is it worth it or the so what question? and there is a retired marine colonel out there who teaches at the national defense university. his name is t.x. hammis. he wrote a book on insurgency, the swinging the stone, and we worked together in iraq, good man. his question is -- his statement is, ok, let's say everything starts going really well, that our casualty count goes down and we see 7% g.d.p. increase in iraq over the next 20 years, and an increasing level of reasonable viable governance in afghanistan, what

do you get? this is his comment, you get chad. is that worth the national treasure that we're pouring into this country? when i get a chance, i run into friends, i call folks, both active duty and retired, and the statement is, ok, john, you have got a minute with the president of the united states, what are you going to tell him about afghanistan? and yesterday at reagan national airport i ran into a retired special forces colonel and he says, i would tell the president to pull pitch, which is a helicopter term to make the helicopter go straight up and out. and that's an s.f. colonel who has been over there sometime. he is also over there as a businessman. and he kept running into wealthy afghanis who would point at their wealthy homes -- you may have seen rachel

maddow's piece. he did on the ground what rachel did. he saw all of these great palaces, but all of the families are living in dubai. there is a brain brain and money drain going on outside of afghanistan right now. we all have to ask the question, what is the outcome. i'm having a very difficult time working my way through the logic on all of this when you consider the geopolitical issues associated with positioning of the country and 70 nuclear weapons in pakistan and the problems with india. you look at all that, and the president really has a dilemma. >> so one of the obvious questions then is what happens if we leave? anyone feel like taking on what happens if the united states decides to leave? >> it's probable that we'll see a period of increased conflict

with a lot of these players and warlords, some of them who we have helped prop up, fight for power and control. we might see neighboring countries who have invested quite a bit in their own relationships and proxies such as iran and india and pakistan work to protect those investments. i think it's very unlikely that we see a return to the 1990's with the taliban-controlled afghanistan. so, yeah, i think paul pilar, a long-time intelligence analyst, the way he put it when he was discussing the president's policy was even if everything goes perfectly, if we achieve everything we set out to achieve in afghanistan, the overall impact on u.s. national security could very well be nil. so that's an equation that keeps running over and over in my mind. >> ok. >> one point to add on that. i don't think there is anyone who is rational in this debate

who is saying they want to wave the magic wand and be gone tomorrow. it's a question of what size force we have there and a presence. i call for a cease-fire and political reconciliation. it's a bad argument that we get into about just leaving it because it's not going to happen. it doesn't make sense to do anyway. how do we conduct ourselves there in a way that makes sense for us strategically as well as brings about an end to the afghan conflict. i don't think there is anyone that is rational who is arguing we need to garrison afghanistan for the next 30 years with 100,000 troops. there is no one arguing about that as well. it's a bad argument to talk about leaving. no one is advocating just leaving tomorrow in an irresponsible manner. >> so let's talk for a minute about domestic politics and kind of domestic politics of this. let us suppose we think that there are people in this room who believe that spending $100

billion a year on a military presence in a country whose g.d.p. is about $14 billion a year, to chase after about 50 al qaeda operatives doesn't make sense, how would they go about changing what we are doing from a political perspective? congressman, if you would be so kind? >> thank you, darcy. thank you for being here. it's extraordinarily important and most important for the progressive community in this country to first of all become engaged in this issue. that's step one. we have to engage and challenge the congress and the congress has to engage and challenge the administration if we are going to move this thing forward. the fact of the matter is that this debate and this issue in washington has been dominated by the military industrial complex, by the republicans, by the military. it's extraordinary to watch the degree to which the military has manipulated the media and administration to box them into

positions, not only to continual come up with the largest defense budgets in the history of the united states, but also to come up with this escalation strategy, the first military escalation, of course, happened before the president's process of reassessing afghanistan even began. that's how powerful these forces are. the problem, let's be very frank about this. when you talk to democrats in congress, progressives in many oceans around the country, they have said up to this point, he is our guy. it's one thing to go after george w bush, but it's another thing to go after our guy. secondly, we got so many other issues. there are so many other priorities that are so important and so engaging all of us that we really have to focus on this. they'll say, you know, we really don't want to spend our time being divided against each other, particularly when we have such an important political challenge in front of us. i mean, the fact of the matter is that it's because he is our

guy, because he is a president that we want to see succeed, it is so critical for us to work to get this albatross off the neck of this administration and off the neck of this country if this administration and this country is going to succeed. secondly, if you look at any issue that we care about include social security, none of these issues are going to have a chance to succeed as long as we keep running up the credit card on adventures like afghanistan, that $100 billion per year, darcy, does not include the interest payments on this. if you look at the "new york times" -- the "new york times" today, interesting story on this process, this pressure, political pressure, again, the pressure from the right calling for deficit reduction, and the president responding with his commission on deficit reduction . of course, the guy who would like nothing more than to be speaker of the house is saying

that in order to make sure there is enough money for war, we have to start looking at our country's entitlement system, read social security, read medicare, read medicaid. any program that you have, the "new york times" story says today that, in fact, our own chairman, that is the democrat party chairman of the senate appropriations committee said that as far as deficits is concerned, he would look first at tax increases and changes in social security and medicare. this is a democrat. to lower the deficit and there was no way that congress would make major cuts in military budgets as long as there are 100,000 troops at war. so, in other words, the way to save the very investments and values and principals that we as progressives care so much

about is through afghanistan. and by challenging the congress to challenge this administration and create a political climate in washington that is not so dominated by the right wing, by the military, and by the military industrial complex, we have got to get busy. >> i do have another question, i'm hoping one of you would be willing to answer which is one that i get asked a lot by women i talk to about afghanistan. what happens to the women and girls of afghanistan if we leave and what happens if we stay? >> being there in eastern southern afghanistan i can tell you that the treatment of women as we see is harsh. in the taliban in the 1990's took it to a whole perverse level. just because the taliban aren't in power doesn't mean that women aren't kept as chattel,

they can't leave their home without being covered. it's a cultural issue. as long as conflict is going on, everybody is bad off. you're not going to change another nation's culture through the barrel of a rifle. you're going to see that culture retract from you resent you and rebel against against you because you're trying to change it. as horrible as some of the things i saw there -- i was in a city in the south of 30,000 people. we had between american, romanian, and afghan forces, about 4,000 troops in that city, so this should have been a liberated city. no, it was like the 14th century there in terms of how women were treated. so you're not going to change it through the barrel of a rifle. there are bigger issues in terms of there is a war going on and people are being killed on both sides, many of them innocent. the fact comes down to, it begs the question, if you're

advocating that we need to engage in operations in eastern and southern afghanistan, in order to change someone else's culture, you're saying people have to go to war. you don't want to accept that. it's a terrible situation there. the one thing you do see, as bad as things were in southern afghanistan or eastern afghanistan, yeah, they're still treated like it's the 14th century, but everybody has got two cell phones on them. so the way you change it is over time generationally through information. >> i'm glad you brought that up because that is something that is -- it's a difficult issue. i mean, as progressives this is a very important issue, women's rights, human rights. i think back to the arguments over afghanistan beginning and how the right wing kind of picked up this issue.

it's amazing how the right wing seems to discover human rights and women's rights when they want to start a new war. as matt said, i think even if we do start to draw down troops, we're not going to end our engagement. this gets to the important question that proives have to start thinking about and that is detirlizing ourselves to the world. -- demilitarizing ourselves to the world. we do it not with guns, but greater engagement and greater back and forth. it's not going to happen through violence. >> let's suppose hypothetically a group of respected experts were to put together an alternative course for afghanistan that did not involve us having the kind of military presence we have there, that held the president to his commitment to start drawing down forces next summer, congressman andrews, what kind of engagement would

congress need to have and what can the activists like the ones here do to impact the debate and that course of action? >> first of all, we have to engage in this current electoral arena. we have to make this an issue that candidates and incumbents are going to have to address. first of all, there is some good news. number one, congress did pass -- that is, they defeated, but the democratic caucus passed or at least embraced, a majority of the caucus, a requirement, an amendment proposed by jim mcgovern, the democrat from massachusetts in the appropriations bill in afghanistan, the administration established an exit strategy to close the open-ended military commitment to the karzai government. it received 162 votes, a strong majority of the democratic caucus including all of the leadership. that was as a direct result of engaging members of congress

and telling them about the importance of this vote and the importance to take a strong stand. that was an important step forward. secondly, we have the majority of americans with us. polls are consistently showing now that a majority of americans believe that this $100 billion-plus a year, that many are including is in fact undermining our national security in so many ways, is simply not worth it, and are opposed to this kind of continued investment. thirdly, the news reporting out of afghanistan to the public has gone from being breathlessly optimistic with this new strategy and this new change and how great things are going to be to a very sober and realistic and frightening in many respects depiction of the facts on the ground. they're not just taking the pentagon's word of it at face value, they are doing fact checking. some of these reports are entering the news media.

these are critically important for the public debate between now and the election. in december, there is going to be an important moment. there is a perfect storm of events that is going to be developing. we'll have the new congress. that's a challenge we know under any circumstances. secondly, we're going to have the president's commission on deficit reduction issue its report on what recommendations it has. and we should all be very, very concerned about the cuts that are going to be required if we don't start reining in this run yi away train of defense spending -- runaway train of defense spending. then the strategy of afghanistan up to that point, to december. we're going to have an opportunity, the stage will be set if you will, for engagement of the next congress. we have to be fully prepared to be engaged with that commission and its results with that assessment and what its

recommendations are and then aggressively move forward to the new congress to challenge the bankruptcy of america in a policy that has nothing to do with our national security interests. >> so i think that that's a reasonable start to the conversation. at this point, for those of you who would like to ask questions, we would certainly be happy to take them. >> opposition to the air strike. i'm a local activist. so if people want postcards, the problem is the whole attack on afghanistan was wrong as stated. i just wanted to come to the afghanistan workshop to make a

point that we need to stand against war in general and that the invasion of afghanistan was wrong and we need to hear it from the women of afghanistan. we need to bring them out in our work and in our media and in our forums. thank you. >> i believe you had a question. >> in 2001 authorizing the war has been used to also justify the warrantless wiretapping and now kind of warranted wiretapping program that works in the united states. it's been used to justify drone strikes in yemen and other strikes. it's been used to justify a number of other counterterrorism issues. if we were to say here is another approach in afghanistan, in other words, we're no longer at war in afghanistan, to what degree is a lot of the push back going to be based on a disinterest on

the part of the administration or on the part of the national security infrastructure in giving up all of those cool toys. >> it's important for us not to underestimate the power of the military industrial complex in washington. i served oned armed forces committee. i have been in washington for a while. there is no group of people more powerful as president eisenhower warned us about. and the justification, this legs that you refer to -- legislation that you refer to, the constant referral to that law that occurred shortly after the 9-11 attacks is a justification for all of the things you suggested and much, much more and gitmo and so forth and so on is frankly outrageous. i think we need to challenge this administration on all of these fronts. because there is so much

pressure coming from the other side. if you're hammer looks like a nail, the military, it's counterintuitive for you to tell someone in the military, that as we increase our military footprint in afghanistan, it's not making things better. it's not making things more secure. every month that passes, the number of u.s. soldiers who die increases. the number of afghans die increases. it's almost exponential. but from their point of view, listen, it's a conflict. we're going to come in with the military and that's how we're going to address this conflict. this administration has to have the political space, if you will, a political climate that allows them to stand up to the military and say no. there is another perspective on this that we're going to deploy, the basic values of this country that are being

undermined by the various things that are going on in the fight against terrorism and the congress needs to stand up and push the administration as hard as possible. let me tell you, even the administration's declaration that we're going to begin the withdrawal of forces from afghanistan in july of 2011 has almost been abolished. on the one hand, he has made that declaration, but when you hear his secretary of defense go before the senate arms services committee and say in answer to a question from joe liebermannerman, if conditions are such that it doesn't look like we should pull trools out in july of 2011, we won't. and maybe we'll even increase troop levels in afghanistan in 2011. when you look at "rolling stone," the "rolling stone" story on mcchrystal, when you look beyond the mcchrystal stuff and you read what some of the commanders on the ground are saying in kabul, they're saying if we're successful, we

think there will be perhaps an escalation of forces in afghanistan in july of 2011. now we're hearing that the united states is interested -- this administration, in renegotiating the status of force agreement with the new government in iraq as soon as it's in place to extend the military presence of the united states in iraq beyond the negotiated deadline of december of 2011. so they are going to push as hard and adds furious and as systematic as they possibly can to move as far as we can to this response of militaryism and we need to be much more aggressive and focused on pushing back. >> i would like to provide a counterpoint. we have heard a lot about the military industrial complex. at the end of world war ii, the 800-pound gorilla in washington, d.c. was not the department of defense. it was the department of state.

today it is the department of defense, because the department of defense has 435 constituents who have military bases, who have g.e. aircraft engine producers, ike skeleton after the second engine for the f--35. the f--136 engine program. the department of defense has congressmen and senators in their pocket who are sending lots of money to the department of defense, and not so much money to the department of state. to the point where the secretary of defense is cutting money over to state because the military wants to get out of the foreign policy arena. so i would encourage everybody to start telling their congressman that that's inappropriate and that the united states military would love to get back to its core

competencies which are providing security and to fight and win the nation's wars. [applause] >> go ahead. >> you can go next. >> sorry about that. i wanted to return to something that was mentioned that i'm very interested to hear your insight about. so not too long ago during the debate around the surge in afghanistan, the people in this majority foundation came out in support of the surge in order to defend women in afghanistan which i particularly ironic considering they're an older white female organization, and also i live in washington, d.c., and i'm seeing a lot of ads, the menacing face of mahmoud ahmadinejad from iran saying that, promoting energy

independence by demonizing for someone who i have no love lost for. it seems troubling to me how it seems very militaryistic, this progressive messaging. my question is what other progressive messaging out there that is out there now that might be supporting the military industrial complex that we're trying to end? if you had a memo to right to them, what would you suggest them to change in their messaging? >> as someone who actually runs a progressive organization, why don't i start for this one. so i think that it's important for us to acknowledge that particularly with aren't to the status of women in afghanistan -- and progressives with mixed feelings about how we approach this problem, that a lot of people don't have a tremendously deep understanding of what is going on or what the tradeoffs are, but three cups of tea has been at the top of

the "new york times" best seller list for years now. it's the most popular reading group book in the world which talks about helping and empowering women and children in afghanistan in particular. we had, after the invasion, all of these images of women being able to take off their veils, these stories being told of women who had not been allowed to go see doctors and women doctors who had not been allowed to treat patients suddenly being allowed to do so. frankly, the feelings of most women in this country about afghanistan and especially progressive women are a little bit mixed. the idea that we would abandon the women of afghanistan is a very bitter pill to swallow including for organizations like the feminist majority foundation. i think it's important that we acknowledge that. part of that i wanted to get across today is that the military presence in

afghanistan isn't actually a constructive way to address those problems. we're not -- [applause] >> we're not doing counterterrorism which would be focused much more on al qaeda and have a much smaller footprint. we're not really doing counterinsurgency. there have been new stories about soldiers of ours in afghanistan complaining about the terms of engagement which are restricting their ability to kill civilians. if you recall one of the things that general eaton said is one of the cornerstones of counterinsurgency is that you protect civilians. so if we have men and women in our military saying those restrictions are too much, clearly what they're trying to accomplish isn't counterinsurgency, at least not as we would traditionally think of it. but the kinds of things that we can do are very different from what we have been doing. as a community, we have an

opportunity to ask our congress and our president to very much change course. if we want to help the women of afghanistan, substantial mige row lending programs -- mike row lending programs -- micro lending programs would be the way to do it. other programs have done it and it has helped in their households and in the society as a whole. there are things that we can help little girls in afghanistan. there are some studies that suggest that the most straightforward way, particularly in a country that is as i am proffer issued as afghanistan is, is to get parents to send little girls to school is to provide them school lunches. the opportunity to not feed them one meal a day is a significant incentive to send them to school. those aren't solutions down the

barrel of a rifle. those are things we can help return control of afghanistan to the afghans, help save the blood and treasure of this country, and help us employ teachers in this country instead of spending $100 billion a year plus interest on our military presence in afghanistan. >> just to clarify something you just said there. the complaints from troops in afghanistan that they were restricted from activities that killed civilians, i think it was just that they were feeling overly restricted in going after the enemy in ways that could possibly kill civilians. i think that's an important distinction just to make the point that this gets to the central, one of the central lessons of counterinsurgency is that at all possible, don't get into a situation where you have to do counterinsurgency. >> a hell of a position to be in to be shot at and not to be able to shoot back, or be in a position where you might kill civilians because your marines

are being threatened. i hope nobody thinks that what is going on there is being done lightly or for disregard for human life. i know people have kills civilians and they will go to their graves every day with that thought. i have a friend who just spent her family vacation with her brother who got back from iraq five years ago. he still gets three hours of sleep a night and cries every night. so i hope no one here thinks that it's an idea that we want loser rules of engagement so we can kill civilians. it's a very difficult, horrible thing. it comes down to -- it comes down to the argument about the war, is it worth it? is it worth putting our young men and women in those positions where they're either being killed or their killing? what do we get out of it? it's a very difficult position. >> i'm the president of a group called afghans for tomorrow. i actually just returned from my third trip there. you said one thing, you said

that if we left, the taliban, would it return? every trip i have gone there, every person i have spoken to there said if you guys pull owl, they're coming back. and the people begged me, get me out of this country because we think you're going to leave. they want our military there to help train them, but it's stupid to think that we can till off the taliban with bombs. so i guess that was my little rant, but my question is two-fold. one is how do you know that the taliban won't come back? and how much money do you think we can spend on things like education and microloans and things like that to make a difference. i think it would be a heck of a lot less than $100 billion a year and we can do a lot more a lot better. >> i don't think the taliban would retake kabul.

circumstances are different right now. i don't believe the government in islamabad would back the taliban to the level they did in the 1990 where they provided not just military intelligence support but a tremendous amount of financial assistance. the taliban took provinces about firing a shot because of money in the 1990's. there is a great hatred for the taliban, not just in the north and west of the country, but in the south and the east. if you got a choice of backing someone who iseth anyly or culturally similar to you or backing foreign troops and a corrupt and unrepresentative government, who are you going to choose? you have to look at the taliban -- this is going back to one of my issues in iraq. for years we said in iraq, first we said there is no insurgency. we said there is an insurgency but they're all the same. that is not the case. we're doing the same in afghanistan by saying the taliban is all the same. the taliban is composed of a lot of different groups, most of them local. there may be 10% or 15% of the

taliban that are not reconcileable. you isolate and neutralize them, like the insurgent groups in iraq. you're addressing some groups that have pretty legitimate grievances. in the south and east, you find that the afghan police forces and the afghan army are composed particularly their officer and n.c.o. corps are northerners and westerners or people from the city. they're outsiders. in 2005 after katrina, they took a guy like me from jersey and gave me charge of a parish in luds and i gave my money to people in jersey. you're dealing with carpet baggers and an unresolved civil war that has been going on for a while. we can't abandon it. we have to be involved in negotiations. we can't stand on the side with our arms crossed and say that

it's basically surrender, lay down your weapons and embrace the afghan constitution. we have to understand the political nature, the regional, the ethnic nature of the conflict and deal with it on local and regional levels. what you do in the east is different than the south. you can split that insurgency and you can address political grievances there. >> can i ask you a question? >> yes. >> recently we have had a breakthrough where we've gotten president karzai to buy into the local security force locally developed and the issue is local stability, local security and local governance. your thought on this program and the expectation of success? >> it's different than in iraq and we took insurgents and brought them on to our side.

we addressed them at the time and getting those extra couple thousand marines helped out, the reason we don't have 32,000 marines in the province anymore is because of that. we talked to the power brokers and said, three years ago we made a mistake. we innovated and usurped you. we want to bring you back to power. that's what they did. what we're doing in afghanistan is we're just arming groups just to get them on our side and not talking to the insurgency. so the question is we're going out there and providing support to different villages, different valleys. in afghanistan, we use the term "valleyism." it really only mattered what happened in your valley you see that in the east and the south, you go to one of our small bases and you ask the platoon leader there how many insurgent groups are there within this area within five kilometers.

he may say five. do they ever work together? they don't come out of their valleys. they work on the lower area, the valley or village level. we're supporting different valleys or villages without any long-term thought behind it. we're going to work with the tribes. we have had successful tribal engagements, but what does that get us? if we back tribe a against tribe b, what does it get for us? how do you know that tribe b is not better than tribe a? we don't have the thought and the analysis behind it and it sounds good. people say, hey, it's what we did in iraq, which is not really the case. i'm very skeptical of it very hesitant of it. i would much prefer to see a political solution at local levels which would be going back to traditional means of

governance and not having central government or foreign intrusion on those areas. in terms of security, rebalancing the afghan security forces so that you have those controlling their areas and not folks on the outside doing that. that's my thoughts on it. >> i have a question about an issue that hasn't been brought up yet as a potential solution. it seems to me that the u.s. armed forces are not the pool that are going to solve the problems in afghanistan and the reasons go all the way from the basic training, the boot camp that is given to our soldiers all the way up to the culture at the pentagon. there just is not an understanding that what is required here is peace keeping. we don't have armed forces that are trained to do peace keeping. they don't understand what it is. the comment about the complaints from our soldiers

about the rules of engagement when they try to protect -- when the rules are there to protect civilians, that kind of complaint is systematic of a basic misunderstanding of what they should be doing this. i put it to you that the u.s. forces are not the tool to solve the problems there, that it's time to hand off the responsibility for afghanistan to a u.n. peace keeping force that would be composed of probably arabmations with islamic backgrounds, some sort of international force that is not perceived as occupiers, not perceives as western imperialists. that's a question to you. would peace keeping not be a better solution than the continued presence of the u.s. forces there? >> the only thing i would say about the u.n. is the u.n. has lost a lot of credibility in the south and east because they have backed the karzai government these last nine years. my framework for what i would like to see happen is having

peacekeepers, particularly long the ethnic faultlines where you have mixed ethnicities or where you have traditional fault lines between them. i will disagree in the sense that if you look at the political efforts that were done in iraq to bring about stability there and get reduced levels of violence among other things, those are primarily done by american military officers. our state department presence there was pretty slim. the same thing, too, i would argue in my knowledge of the balance cans, i have a feelings that most of the -- balkans were done by military officers. i agree with you on principal that the military is not our diplomatic corps and their mission is i'm a marine. my mission was to locate and destroy the enemy. that's what you're taught and trained for. i agree with you in principal. in practicality, i don't see our civilian sidestepping forth

and doing that. >> i challenge the premise on the training aspect. yes, we are trained to fight at a very intensity level of combat. our units can tune that down to provide security requirements. i'll also share with you the comment from a retired indian three star general who said that the last horse that he would use for peace keeping operations would be the united states simply because we are tract fire. the united states would love to see a greater involvement from the international community and provide security functions in iraq -- afghanistan. >> we have only just a couple of minutes before we get kicked out of this room. i thought we would very briefly

give each of our panelists an opportunity for a quick closing statement. i want to start and i set this up to talk a little bit about what all you could do to help end the war in afghanistan which at this point is the longest war the united states has fought. we have an opportunity particularly between now and november to change the debate in this country. if you remember, only a few things from today's panel, i would like you to remember the following -- we are spending $100 billion a year to chase 50 members of al qaeda what we are laying off hundreds of thousands of teachers and talking about cutting social security. that's the choice that we're making? the more we can help the american people understand that that is the choice we are making, the more we can apply pressure to members of the congress and to this

administration to reconsider the course that they're on which is clearly not accomplishing things that are in the best interest of the united states. matt, did you want to go next? >> i have just a couple points. thanks very much for this panel and all of you for being here. the key point i would like to make about the counterinsurgency strategy and particularly lessons we can draw from the surge in iraq, which was, i mean, one of the driving arguments behind the surge in afghanistan was this idea that the surge in iraq had been successful. i think clearly the iraq surge coincided and in some ways help drive down security and i think our military deserves credit for that. there were a number of other factors in iraq that created the conditions for the drop in security. i think this goes to the point that success such as it is unrelated to decisions that the united states makes. so to imagine that the united states is going to continue spending $100 billion in afghanistan until we reach a

point where things happen that are out of our control so we can declare victory and begin drawing down, i find that unacceptable. we need to create a narrative and make arguments that include the united states defining when and how we leave afghanistan. we have to leave responsibly, but nonetheless, it has to be our decision. again, i would like to place it within this broward idea as i said earlier did detirl -- demilitarizing. we need to see how that looks on the ground. >> i endorse what matt just said. there is a program called the project on national security reform, they have produced an 800-page dead letter document that is sitting in a drawer in washington, d.c. what we need to do is retool the national security architecture of the united states so the best and brightest in all areboundias of

what the united states does so well -- amarinas of what the united states does so well is to employ educational duties and other duties in afghanistan and other countries and to unweighted u.s. military, to bring the u.s. military into his core competencies. if you need to develop judiciary, then our judicial system with its absolutely stunning capacity to do right can deploy to afghanistan and help us out and get the judicial system out of the hands of taliban and into the hands of local and national government. so it's fix the architecture of the united states so that we unweighted military. >> i'm new to this kind of scene this is my firstever type of political convention. so i'm assuming most of you are activists or some form of

blogger and are involved. my encouragement would stem basically to a remember being in anbar in fall of 2006. it was a complete mess. every once in a while, you would see a tv. the debate was going in the u.s. about the iraq war. the level of debate you see on television, now every couple weeks, it was nothing greater than two kids yelling at each other on the schoolyard. that's the level of maturity that the folks in d.c. was seeing. besides all of the rational arguments you can make about, hey, al qaeda is not there. our troop presence is not having an effect on a worldwide mafia-like organization, our strategy is it counterproductive. we have been doing this for a bunch of years, five years but getting worse. this idea that it's going to get better before it gets worse. it's been five years now. when does the better part start. i'm sure general eaton has the same experiences like a lot of you all in the audience have one of those open up the "new york times" yesterday and there

is a name i know, a kid who had been one of my marines 10 years ago in japan, he is dead now. he got married, had two kids. actually, the one is not born yet. so there is a human cost to this that i think escapes a lot of the american public. i forget where i saw the number, but it said something about 10 million americans have any type of an emotional connection to afghanistan out of a population of 300 million. if you all are involved in this, i would encourage you to keep that -- make your arguments rational and intellectual, but keep in the back of your mind the human cost of this and whether or not it's worth it. >> in tuesday's "new york times," there was a story about how a panel in london is assessing what happened in the invasion of iraq and their former director of their f.b.i., m.i. 5 who was there from 2002 to 2007, said understand the invasion of iraq

and the engagement of afghanistan is making britain much less safe, much more dangerous. it's not making us more secure, it's making us less secure. on the page adjoining that story was a story about how in states all across this country, the movement for independent living for disabled people is being rolled back. i was involved in disability rights movement years ago. this is the 20th anniversary of the americans with disabilities act. the basic investments that allowed people to live institutioned and live lives of independence is rolled back because of the budget cuts that are being forced on all of the states. it's because the congress is sending money over to afghanistan. and so whether it's the impossible situation we're putting our young people in afghanistan or the devastation to the things that we care so much about and have fought for here at home, the stakes could not be higher. and if there anything i would

leave with folks, i go back to my beginning comment. we need to have a very engaged anti-war move that is making it clear to the progressives across this country and in congress that we are active, we are aware, and we're not going away. when we had the run-up to the war in iraq, we did a thing to try to get the attention of the congress. we asked people to call the senate in one single day. it was called a virtual march on washington. we had people sign up on the website, at this particular minute at 10:02 would you call one senator, at 10:06 call another senator. people signed up, the word spread and things happened. on that day, over 1 million people called the senate in one single day saying don't invade iraq. we have enormous power as a movement. we have the majority of the american people with us. we have issues that we care about and values that are

desperately important. we need to put all of that work and fight like we have never fought before. thank you. >> to close and actually building off something congressman andrews said, i was in -- i work with members of congress on a daily basis. i was 2 1/2 months talking to congressman mcgovern who is one of the real leaders in the house of representatives on ending this war. he told me something that really shocked me. he said that every day his office gets calls about the economy. every day his office gets called about energy policy and ending our dependence on oil. every day his office gets called about whatever random suspension bills they're working on this week. but in the 60-day period prior to me going into talk to him, he had gotten fewer than a dozen calls about ending the

war in afghanistan. and this is one of the leaders of the anti-war movement in congress. they're not hearing from us. they do not believe that the american people want them to end this war because we're not talking to them. and so they continue to send money to pay for troops at the same time that they say we can't afford to pay for teachers and we can't afford to pay for unemployment, and we can't afford to pay for health insurance and we can't afford to keep the promises we made for social security. and everyone in this room can have an impact on that. ask people to call, whether they're calling the white house or they're calling congress. at the end of the day, the white house has to take the call from members of congress even if congress doesn't have

an immediate action that can take, asking them to apply pressure to the white house will make a difference. we have been there for far too long with no exit strategy, and it's time for us to end this. thank you so much for coming today. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> join us tomorrow for a couple of rallies here in washington. live starting at 10:00 a.m. eastern, it's glenn beck and his restore honor event from the lincoln memorial. he will also be covering al sharpton and his rally call reclaim the dream. we'll have taped coverage of that later tomorrow afternoon on espn. >> we now have a generation coming up who didn't really have the arts very much as children and didn't have the arts in the public schools certainly. these are now the 20-year-olds. i'm very concerned about that

group of people that they're going to come to the arts. >> michael kaiser heads the kennedy center for the performing arts. sunday night, he'll talk about the future of the arts in the u.s. >> we have plenty of people in government that all of us can talk to inside of d.c. what we need to do is get out beyond that beltway in d.c. out here across america and hear from our constituents. >> while congress is on summer break, some members are holding town hall meetings in their districts. we have been covering them. watch them online at the c-span video library. it's all searchable and free on your computer anytime. >> the two candidates running in the wisconsin republican primary for govern took part in a didn't wednesday at marquette university law school in milwaukee.

former congressman mark neuman and milwaukee county executive mark walker took questions on the state's economy, schools, and transportation systems. the winner of the republican primary on september 14 will face the likely democratic candidate who president obama campaigned for last week. govern jim doyle is not running for a third team. this hour-long debate is courtesy of wisn tv in milwaukee. .

the citizens will recruited based on anticipatioparticipatil government. they were to represent wisconsin and, plus several questions that they want answered. we want to thank them and fans for their hard work, time, and participation. this is a conversation in wisconsin. people want to hear more than talking points, sound bites, or slogans. we also recognize that we have limited time.

our goal is to have the candidate to address the issues and hear more about how they would attack some of the toughest challenges. there are no more opening statements but one candidate will have a closing statement. both of you have made bold promises in the campaign.

why should the voters believe you. >> we have to get spending under control. we need to get to a point where our roles and regulations have not done business across the great state of wisconsin. we have found states that are doing very very well in this country. they are doing very well. north carolina, that if they could match the intellectual knowledge of the three universities out there, the business would come to north carolina. utilizing that theory, they have attracted more educational

facilities. we would like to match the intellectual knowledge that we have and we would like to go and recruit businesses. we want them to work with the college professors and instead of leaving, they will stay right here in this great state. >> i think sent everyone already knows that i make promises that i plan on keeping. 25 years ago when i was growing up in a small town.

and we lost 1 1/7 a thousand jobs. we had a major budget hold. the people went south to illinois. when the last business leaves wisconsin, please turn out the lights, there was a sign that said this. we can do better than that. we can rebuild the state, put it back on the right track. the policies helped the people, not the government, the people create 258,000 jobs. i know that we can do this again and we have to do this again. on a went to a couple -- i went to a couple who had a metal- fabricating society.

because of the recession, they were devastated. they want more than anything to bring the people back to work but we have to improve the business climate in our state. that is why we talk about cutting through red tape, improving our education system, lowering health-care costs, and improving infrastructure. >> if you are talking to people who are hurting, those who are employed or underemployed, this will take time. there are no quick fixes. our plan is a twofold plan. this will take time to implement. i understand that you have to have a short-term vision and a long-term vision. the government has it completely wrong. they think if they spend more money, somehow they can turn this economy around. when you take more money out of the pockets of people, people

have more money on their hands. what we need in wisconsin is a major tax cut. we have proposed the largest tax cut in the history of the state of wisconsin. they're willing to start paying their taxes monthly. we have used to this principle before and we were very successful. these are not a career politician ideas. this is a very simple program. if you're willing to start paying your taxes monthly or by the end of the year, you may keep all of your 2011 taxes. this would be an $11 billion tax cut for the state of wisconsin. if we let the people keep more of their own money, i guarantee you that they would spend it or they would save it.

>> i look forward to implementing that program to jump-start the economy. >> you called this a fraud. why is this a fraud? >> because there's no change in the property taxes. my tax bill does not go down. you just change the date. for any of us, you actually lose the credit for your mortgage on your federal income tax. to go back to your initial question, can this happen effectively right away, yes, it can. >> are you saying that wisconsin can rise above what is happening in the rest of the country? >> i think a change in leadership can make a

difference. i talked to a company where they have three plants. they want to add 120 more plants. they told me that they cannot do this under the current business climate. disnethere are many businesses t are just treading water. on their sending a strong message that they can save jobs. >> i have been in business for 26 years. i also understand if you have a career in politics, this leads you to a certain way of thinking and a certain set of ideas.

you get into a train of thought and it says that this plan works. i get real estate property taxes and i guarantee this plan works. when a couple of municipalities implement the plan and they see the property owners keeping their taxes, you will never pay this, this is a tax cut. you keep that money in your pocket. you do not repaid that at some future date. the january, 2012 payment is 2012 taxes. >> will any local government lose funding. >> the answer that you said is that they will not. this is a simple concept. if you cut spending, and you can cut taxes. i talk about controlling spending and you can control property taxes.

there is a shift whether you pay in december or january. >> the property-tax plan works beautifully. you'll find people very happy to have their property taxes in their pockets. there's a chapter in the book which lays out precisely how this plans work. i encourage you to pull it up and down load it. >> there's a lot to talk about on this particular subject. i want to ask you, i get a sense of what is the proper roll if any of government in terms of creating jobs. what do we do to lure companies to miss constant?

-- to wisconsin? >> people ask me what i would have done with -- if i am governor, they don't even think about leaving in the first place. the only reason talk about moving to oklahoma is that it is cheaper to do business there. we need to address the cost of doing business. health care, taxes, electricity, if you deal with those, you don't have to have a grab bag. >> would you have helped them when they came and said, we need your help? >> i have the details plan to bring spending down so we can lower taxes. was 26 years in business, this is not just about tax credit or

the tax structure but the cost of doing business. i see the paperwork and the red tape that we have to go through to run a business. one of the business owners said they will never hire a wisconsin business again because of the difficulty of the paperwork. i have watched as they have ramp up the rules and regulation and red tape. >> a very briefly, would you decide things on the case by case basis? if charlie davidson said that we need to keep the plants open, help us? >> in the end, there will never be a worker in the state who will say that the governor did

not do everything as power to help keep their jobs. -- raised their taxes. >> the ceo said no, that is not a factor. >> he said, that is not the only issue. yes to cover $54 million to china should -- charge for combine reporting. >> anyone who does math cannot tell me that this is not one part of the equation. >> i am a business owner for 26 years. i would be sitting down across for them. what we do is that a cost- benefit analysis. we do this on in business by

business basis. what is the business, what is the benefit? what is the risk? what is the cost. we will bring businesses to this state. this is just like i have been doing for the past 26 years. >> i hear you talking about wanting to change the tax climate in the state. you want to lower taxes for a lot of different folks. what would you spend on, what will you cut? let's begin our citizens questions. i know the citizens group has some questions about spending. >> they want to know how they would spend their state tax money. we had our own debate about how to asked this question and. what are the top three areas

where you would spend it state tax money and what are the areas you would cut and by how much to help cut the deficit? >> i would look at the different programs and make decisions on which areas to cut spending. we want to control spending at the state level. what happens in politics is that politicians will talk to about one small part of the budget. they will think that they are electing someone who will cut spending. they will think they are electing someone who will cut spending in the state budget is that they did not mention they would increase spending in different area by 3 billion. oyou have to look at the bottom line. we will put a cap in place to stop government spending.

i want to mention while i was in congress, this same approach that i'm talking about, not small areas to the budget, talking about the big picture, capping spending. when i went there, we had a $250 billion deficit. we did this by capping the overall growth. we were able to pass the biggest tax cuts in american history. the only time the federal budget has been balanced in the last generation was when i served in congress and the plan that we is is to cap the overall growth in spending. >> i was in madison talking to the school board association members from all across the state and they like so many people are asking the same question. i would say three things that are priorities for me, private

safety -- public safety, education, spending. the would look at specific programs and wages and benefits. we don't want to do with the governor has done is to kick the can down the road. we need to get our legacy costs under control. we should ask the state workers case to make the employee contribution to the state pension. if you make those kinds of changes such as the number of state employees, benefit changes, addressing major government programs, such as the one that is supposed to be a safety net. this has become a permanent entitlement. >> i think that we have a

follow-up. >> you are not hearing everything that you wanted to hear. >> this is short on details. we really want to hear the priorities. you have to look at the big picture. we are looking for the things you will protect and the things that you will cut and we did not hear that. >> when we look at state spending, what is a priority. we are very centered on restoring the economy and jobs. i think that this is a high priority and the state of wisconsin. we're looking a safety, education, infrastructure. things that will bring us the

opportunity to bring more jobs back to the state of wisconsin. i have a tendency to go straight through how we are going to control spending. >> i would add one quick note. also, don't just talk about what i'm going to do, look at what i've done. even with the tax increases, we protected the public safety. that is a sharp contrast. >> we will move across the state to green bay and a question that i think is somewhat related. >> we have been brainstorming and having our own debate and representing our group is -- >> we are interested in the

breadth and depth of your knowledge on the entitlement programs. funding for entitlement programs constitutionally 50% of the federal budget. it is an understatement to say -- in the state. what are some of the programs to which the residents of wisconsin are entitled to? in a financial crisis, specifically what programs would you reduce or eliminate? >> when we think about what is the responsibility of the state of wisconsin, i would start with education because without the education, many of the things would not fall in place. the kids are our future. you might not think of this as an entitlement to this is how i think of it. i think that they are entitled

to publicly-funded education. i've taught in public schools, in college. we currently manage four private schools. when i think about education and entitlements, the entitlement that i go through, every child is entitled to a publicly funded education. the bird is so great that it is almost breaking the bad. -- the burden is so great that it is almost breaking the back. we keep more oand more pressure on people. the second point i would make is that there are programs that we need to have but we are overrunning them.

people are losing out and their ability. we have people that are physically and mentally not able to work. as governor, you can count on my support. we want to have people have a job opportunity in this state. >> a great question. for me, i mentioned public safety, education, and higher education but i give you a specific program -- family care. this has bipartisan support. this is a way of helping older adults. we would have to go through all the different programs to get care. milwaukee county is one of the first county's to fully in after

that and one of the few that is solvent. before i came into office, there were nearly 3000 older adults waiting for care services but today there's not one. we make it possible to make it better for the people we serve but also it is very cost- effective. one program is supposed to be a temporary safety net as it went from welfare into the work force and this was a temporary step up. under this governor, we have had the time limits go away. this is all kinds of fraud and abuse. >> why don't we go north. thanks to tammy and the group in green bay. we want to go to the northwest

and to jerry gallagher who joins us now. jerry has a question about education. >> we are hearing from both candidates that education, lower taxes is definitely a priority of theirs. here's the question. what do you plan to do to create a more equitable funding system between metro areas like the walkie and smaller school districts that have declining enrollment and to do those things without placing a larger burden on the taxpayers? >> there are a number of things we have to do. education in general is a party for all of us. for me, there are thousands of reasons to be proud of the

education system. everyone of us who is a parent or grandparent, it is immoral and heard that they have access to grade education. this is also an economic imperative. we need to empower school districts for starters. we need to take it a step further and when we go to arbitration. when local school districts go to arbitration, we need to consider other factors. in the area we're talking about here, if ashley furniture and car losing money, we should not have school districts at having salary increases. if we want to save them $60 million a year. all those things would help.

in terms of the specific questions, i don't think that we can do it. i think we can do this in the first term. there are declining enrollment districts all across the state. >> one of the problems that we have is that when people are talking about education, we talk about money, whittaker but teachers' unions, benefits. education is about kids in the classroom. i look at the kids in the schools, i look at those who are failing.

that is a very great public school. we also have some that are not working. when i look at our kids in milwaukee and i see them advancing, i'd know that every child killecan learn. we have the highest risk kids in the state of wisconsin in the schools. if you are successful, you typically don't come over to our private schools. our kids are feeling and then they can go to the private schools. we found out that we can provide the education at about 40 cents on the dollar. hands-on on the ground experience. how do we fix this problem with experience? what is different than what is happening in the public schools

today? the public has the tendency to blame teachers. i went to the -- and use study the book that is full of mandates. it costs your school district a bundle to me with things that are not related to the schools. there is nothing that i can see that would indicate that the people in madison or washington, d.c. know better how to run the school systems and our local school board. parents get actively involved in the school system and we solve the problem not with a formal discussion but how do we bring down the overall cost of education to the point where the taxpayers can afford to pay for a while at the same time improving the quality of the education? >> thank you so much for the question.

now we'll go over to kathy who has her group. what would they like to hear? >> we want to hear people make points not talking points. that is what our group is looking for. >> considering the allocation of funds and curriculum, i know you alluded to it earlier, but what would you do to address the educational issues? what issues do you see the need to be addressed? >> i am a white water graduate. we have a little bit in common. what we need to do, are you referring to higher education in particular? i will address this because we talked at about the district law will before.

we are partnering with other people on the ground. there are grass that money has a college campus has. the other thing that happens that is so important in terms of how i look at a legacy for my generation, we can get this going. they will be actively involved with those partnerships and the resources. they will have experience in the area that have businesses and stay right here in the future. let's think about our future, i want to have that opportunity to

stay here and raise their family. >> is there any kind of issue or formula that we already has in our school system? is therhow do you deal with tha? >> the research grants are helping to fund education. when you look in your college tuition costs, that will help you pay for some of it. they're asking controlling costs. we are talking about our program. we have reduced spending and education by 25% overall we're

looking at our education plan which is one of the chapters in this book. what you would find is that he told us that he would reduce his public school costs by 10%. >> you're talking about higher education and general patient -- education. i have two kids in high school a couple of years away from them going off to college. maybe they will be on the same campus as you a couple of years down the way. i looked at the education. we express this as a frustration across the state.

we're trying to take the precious few dollars that they get from the state and the property taxpayers to put it into something that works in the classroom. i did list that as a fairly concise list of things. the dawn of a plan to tackle those and the money gets spent elsewhere. i love teachers. the system does not reward excellence. if you are not so great, we will help you. if he continued to not be so great, you will find someone to replace you. having a great education system, the should not matter where is the code is, you should have access to a great education system. no matter what your background is, no matter what your parents do.

we want people to be freed up from the mandate. when it comes to education, we were out it whitewater. places all across the state, when i hear campus by campus, they don't want all of the structure. they want a greater economies of that they can meet the economic needs. i will give them more flexibility. >> we will move on. we will go west. we will go to look cross -- la cross. i would like to ask the candidates to make the answer is a little bit shorter.

>> we are talking here about high-speed rail. i want to focus the question more on how it affects the area. we have seen manufacturing job losses in recent years. investment and high-speed rail, the federal government has given about $820 million to establish that. it might link madison with the twin cities and might bring this through the area. people are wondering why not invest in high-speed rail and perhaps bring thousands of manufacturing jobs to the area? >> this is viewed differently depending on different places you go. >> when i go across the state, they were not very thrilled with it. they want to spend $810 million

on a train line between milwaukee and madison. this is about taking the money, this will cost the citizens of wisconsin up to $10 million per year. that does not go to fix the road that goes up from less salem, through the cut out from black river falls, it is not a fix any of the valley. that is money taken away from our local roads and bridges. i think that there are many things that we should be doing to help bring back manufacturing. i want to do this on the way that doesn't take money out of our transportation funds and things that need to be fixed today. >> this area would not see high- speed rail if you're the governor.

>> wisconsin will not see high- speed rail of i'm the governor. there is a company that helps to build out these in the cities and towns and they are a major employer. i would rather see them connect people across the state and create jobs. >> there is economic potential in this. by connecting cities across the midwest. is there no economic investment in the high-speed rail? >> i respect the person who asked a question but i disagree. as governor, i would stop the high-speed rail. the federal government is overdrawn. they are spending almost $2 for

every dollar that they have and they decide to go spend 200 -- $810 million on high-speed rail. if they had this money and they came here to the state of wisconsin, i would use this for tax cuts. >> it will not be used for tax cuts. >> we don't know if this point. >> i tell you what, it will not be tax cuts. >> no one knows what will happen to that money. if we get it, this is going to taxpayers. this is where we all disagree. scott and i will tell you that we will stop the high-speed rail. >> how would you stop it? >> the same way we stopped any business problem. we have had contracts that have been started then have to be stopped. i will tell you this.

this is the only situation i can think of that i'm happy that this is for government. course how would you stop it? >> transportation contracts have out clauses. the same way that you have a road project and you cannot interpret forward, if you can get out. >> it is cloudy. >> it is not cloudy to me. we have stopped it. we have stopped boondoggles that were not saving money. >> i think that we should differentiate. if we can keep the $810 million, it will come back to them in the form of a tax cut. you would spend as on roads and bridges. and would only say that if we need more money, we would

reprivatize spending. this is going back to the people in the form of tax cuts. >> we have done this in the past and the government went to the congress, the congressional delegation of wisconsin. >> let's thinks the people for their question. i don't think there's much doubt about how you feel about this subject. you have a question on a different topic, one that has had a fair amount discussion in the past year. >> we are joined by a professor at one the local universities. go ahead.

>> what is your long-term vision for the energy landscape and what is central wisconsin role in that landscape? what invitations would you encourage full our turn to the energy sources. -- for our energy resources. >> what does our energy future look like? >> i think the future will be an energy-independent nation. we need to end our dependence on foreign oil. we don't need government mandates and government subsidies that market-driven solutions. when i talk about this, this is something on the ground floor. i evebelieve in market-driven

solutions. we designed and built a home that has all of the energy needs for heating and cooling. we did not do it where it had to be subsidized or the people had to lay out tens of millions of dollars. market-driven solutions to lead us into the future. >> this is an energy-independent solution. >> i'm all for being green. being green is about saving.

that is really the contrast. this costs us 43,000 jobs. we have paper mills that would lose thousands of jobs. we need to have a comprehensive energy policy. whether it is clean burning coal, i would like to see the moratorium. there are all kinds of options out there without having government mandates. the >> i would oppose 2525. this should be coming to us. >> thank you to our friends in

northern wisconsin. there is a layered question. we have been asking people familiar with our website to send us some questions and what they would like. >> the questions have been pouring on all delong. why don't we start with a question from -- the question for both candidates is, do you support returning all 17-year-old to the juvenile justice system instead of letting the court system try them as adults and why? >> when i was in the legislature and i chaired the committee, this is unimportant issue.

i want to be mindful of kids. the overwhelming majority of kids who were sentenced under the adult system are on probation. they have violent crimes all across the state. we need to find a better alternative. settling back down into the juvenile system is not the answer turns out. this is not something that is widely reported that we reduced the number of down people that the state since then. we find viable alternatives in the front end a work with churches and other support networks to keep them from cycling back in and out of the system.

>> i support allowing 17-year- old son tried as adults. i think along the same lines, the concept of early release needs to be tightened up dramatically. what we don't want to do is return criminals to the streets. i am very concerned about safety. safety is a very high priority the concept of safety, when people understand that wisconsin is a safe place to do business, it will be much easier to outsource. >> thank you for that question. thank you for the people who have been offering us their questions over the past few days.

>> one thing that got us very fired up was this whole idea of state government rating is on budget. we talked about the patient compensation fund, the patient fund. we are wondering what the candidate would do to restore integrity to make sure that that does not happen again. >> i can tell a that we cannot get away with what they have been doing. we would not allow this under a new administration. i could not take aside money. i come at this with a business approach. this is not acceptable in

business and would not be acceptable in government. there is not a business in a state of wisconsin that would have done what the state would have done. >> that is a frustration i hear across the state. someone starts talking about the governor's race and grumbles about all the money taken from state transportation. certainly what we saw in terms of $200 million more. as governor, i will support a constitutional amendment said that no future governor can do this. there's a good example of the many examples of how this governor has really kicked the can into the future.

we have improved the bond rating. >> we are talking about the entire federal budget that we inherited. i think we will have to wrap things up pretty quickly. this will people deal with pretty quickly. you have a deficit when this takes off, how do we pay the

bills if we lower the taxes? >> the job growth has helped the families. we need to have a growth agenda, which is what i'm talking about. we also need to control spending. >> we balanced the budget the only time in a generation. if you reduce the size of the

government every year that ayman office, we will be in balance inside of 12 months. taken that this book. that is where i got a lot of ideas. >> i have done it before. >> we appreciate taken the questions. we appreciate the question is for our citizens. we are at the end of time. we have time left for a closing statement. this will be a minute in length.

based on an earlier drawing, you have the final comment. >> i think that is imported opportunity to do with people from the state of wisconsin. i'm very upbeat about our future. i love our state and i love our country we would like wisconsin to be the best place in america to do business. we want to have the best- educated kids in the world because that is our future. if you have a vision in place, you need to develop a very specific strategy. we want to cut taxes and balance the federal budget. in 1998, the budget was balanced. these contain detailed plans. i love our state, i love our

country, i have three beautiful grandchildren. my dream and opus that my grandchildren will watch shohet their families grow up here and get their education and jobs right here in the best state in the country. >> my thanks to you. this is a great way to interact with the voters. 8 years ago, i took on the political machine here in the county. we took it on that machine and one. at that time, i handed out a flier that talked about all the things that we want to get done. i had a checkpoint and tell people to put them out in the refrigerator i love it when people come up and tell me that they still have their slier up on their refrigerator.

i kept my promises then and i will keep them now. i believe and wisconsin. i believe that this state is headed down the wrong path for this current governor and we need to fundamentally change our direction. this is not about being on the right or left, it is about who amongst us knows this is a trained what is right and what is wrong. we're ready to lead. help is on the way, thank you for your time, i asked for your vote. . >> i want to thank everyone for being here. finally a special guesthanks for hosts.

the primary will be over in aco. then we will move on to the finalists in the race for governor and u.s. senate. thank you very much for being with us. have a great evening. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> we have been showing you a debate between the republican candidate for the wisconsin governor. we have a repository for related information on our website. c-span.org. join us tonight for an evening with some of the supreme court justices.

beginning at 8:00 eastern, it is anthony kennedy. an hour later, the focus is president obama's first appointment to the bench, justice sonia sotomayor. then a conversation with ruth later ginsberg -- ruth bader ginsberg. the university of wisconsin law school hosted a discussion of the blog treaty -- oceans' treaty. this is about an hour and 40 minutes.

. . .

>> happily, neither steven nor his staff found the time to interview me. on that particular question. we have a short conversation. -- we had a short conversation. john played a instrumental role in negotiations and represented the national security council committee on the subject. for many years, he has maintained a strong interest in the law of the sea treaty and

has been one of the primary individuals involved. his success is not measured in time, but in persistence. we will hear from each of them for about 20 minutes and then we will respond. the chairman will have an opportunity to ask a question for two. then we will open up the floor to you for questions and we will keep a few minutes at the end so they can some of. thank you for being here. -- so they can some of. -- sum up. thank you, very much. >> ambassador, my distinguished

opponent, and ladies and gentlemen, my opening remarks will be in three parts. first, the background and the importance of law of the sea convention for the united states. second, while the arguments of the opponents are simply misinformed, and third, the very real ongoing cost in the failure of moving forward to appear -- to hear to the law of the sea. -- to adhere to the law of the sea. the united states, during the early 1960's, was party to the four geneva conventions on the law of the sea. during the next few years, and we began a process of trying to modernize the law of the sea.

that was as a result of a number of critical problems facing the united states and the world. the first of those was the threat to navigational freedom, including warship mobility and the mobility of fleets of around the world as a result of unilateral claims in the world's oceans. the second related to have the overfishing by foreign fishing fleets -- related to have the overfishing by foreign -- heavy overfishing by foreign fishing fleets. we need a serious set of provisions dealing with protection of the environment. in addition to that, the united states understood that there were these resources in the deep

ocean floor that were attractive with their content and we needed property rights for u.s. industry and other industry around the world to be able to go out and mind those sites. -- and mine those sites. this was beyond areas of national jurisdiction and you have a problem of trying to create property rights without trying to inhibit the navigational freedom of the world's oceans. that resulted in a decade-long effort that was very successful on the part of the united states and other countries leading to the 1982 convention on the law of the sea. that was extremely favorable to all of the interest that we have just talked about, with one

exception, which was the issue of deep seabed mining. the result was not acceptable to the united states. the united states was outside the government. i sent a letter to president reagan saying that there are changes that need to be made on seabed mining before the united states should go forward. i am delighted to say that reagan did a thorough review and came out of that review agreeing exactly as i did that there were changes that needed to be made. the rest of the treaty was strongly in the interest of the united states of america. reagan, at that time, put out a press statement, indicating that there were six changes that

needed to be made. that was the official united states policy. over a time frame of several years, there was a successful negotiation that resulted in achieving all of the reagan conditions and other excellent things that we have not thought about at that time -- had not thought about at that time. as it was renegotiated in 1994, it became of extremely important interest to the united states of america. it included very favorable provisions. first, it included a 200 mile exclusive economic zone where we would have control of the economic activities and the fishery is of that -- the fisheries of that area.

in areas of alaska, they probably go out to 600 nautical miles. it consisted of 200 miles owns in other parts of the united states. the extended continental shelf given to any nation in the world, you would think that the united states would be the first in the queue. in addition to that, we achieved all of the defense goals of the united states and i worked very closely with the office of the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. we met a variety of other fundamental security issues as well. in addition, we got the best- sites in the world's oceans for deep seabed mining. these were set aside for the

united states at this point. we had an excellent environmental chapter that really reflected many of the environmental laws already put in place by the united states. we increased the protection of critical infrastructure and underwater cables and we have a powerful precedent in which the united states of america was singled out to be the only nation in the world given a permanent seat on the council of the international seabed authority that would deal with the seabed mining and it would have a veto over a number of very important issues. in addition to that, it is very important to know that there is absolutely no united states ocean foreign policy or security interest that is better off without the treaty than it is with the treaty.

that is something highly unusual. usually, there are trade-offs. there were no trade-offs. all are served by the convention. not surprisingly, there is a very powerful base of support to move forward for the convention. it includes all presidents of the united states of both parties since 1994. it includes all living chief of naval operations and all commandants of the coast guard, all secretaries of state, the united states chamber of commerce, the secretary of homeland's security, the ocean industries association, the oil and gas industry, the environmental movement's.

it was unanimously supported by the policy commission, a bipartisan group appointed by congress and the president to look at u.s. oceans policy. i am delighted to say that there was a very fine letter from gov. serum palin on the letterhead of the national governors' association. you ask why the treaty has not been approved when there is such overwhelming support in which every single element basically serves in the interest of the united states? there has been a handful of well meaning, misinformed critics of the convention. let me just give you someone else's view of this.

this is a statement about what i just said about secretary -- the president of the home and security department. he said that he must briefly acknowledged that there are opponents that have raised a number of bad arguments against the convention. i think that the secretary was absolutely right. let me give you some examples of these arguments that are not just wrong, and they are upside- down. there are 180 degrees wrong. -- a they are 180 degrees wrong. >> , -- "there is not an ounce of american sovereignty lost by this convention. to the contrary, there is the largest jurisdiction for the

united states in the history of the nation. it is a larger expansion than we got from the louisiana purchase and the acquisition of alaska combined. in addition to that, we secured a very strong support for the sovereignty and the protection of sovereignty that the united states worships. my opponent and those that make this argument ought to go back and look at the united states foreign relations law and understand that under , esident, -- under precedent you can never violate the constitution or remove the ability of the congress of the united states to override or make new policy. we do not lose an ounce of

sovereignty while gaining this huge additional area. my opponent argues that the convention will create a new international bureaucracy with the power to regulate the oceans. it avoids the effective control of 70 -- 70% of the earth's surface. that is wrong. the only regulatory authority that is created by this convention is the new international seabed authority which has a very small area of jurisdiction. it is solely dealing with property rights and the mining of resources from the deep ocean floor beyond national jurisdiction and beyond the expanded areas of jurisdiction. there is no other jurisdiction

to be dealt with. the organization is strongly in defense of the united states. we needed a conservative concept in order to be able to go out there and have a $2 billion investment to develop one of the sites. in addition to that, this is a very ordinary sized kind of operation. we are party to many different national organizations. this one is comparable to the great lakes fisheries commission between the united states and canada. after 25 years, it has a staff of 40 including the secretaries and drivers and a tiny budget of about $6 billion. i do not believe that this is

about to take over planet earth. and in -- an interesting contrast is the foundation from which you are from. it turns out that the heritage foundation has a number of employees that are 10 times larger than the international seabed authority and a budget that is more than 10 times larger than that of the international seabed authority. ronald reagan would have opposed the treaty even as it was renegotiated. that is what is said, again, it is wrong. reagan had a thorough review and came out saying that we needed only the six changes in relation to seabed mining. all of those six and more were achieved in the fundamental

reagan amendments. in addition to that, in 1983, ronald reagan issued an important order that we are still falling -- following. that is the non-seedbed portions that the united states would comply with and move forward. that is hardly an indication of an objection to retrieve for it do not take my word for it. let's look at the secretary of state for ronald reagan during this period. it surprises me to learn that opponents of this treaty argue that reagan would have opposed ratification despite having succeeded on this issue. during his administration, with support from president reagan, we made it very clear that we

would support ratification if our position on the seabed issue were accepted. most egregiously, american participation was said to undermine military operations. hear, ladies and gentlemen, one might have questions about his military credentials. the classic 24 start letter -- 24-star letter, all of the commandants, virtually all of the secretaries of state and many secretaries of defense and heads of the cia, i think you have quite a explanation to

indicate why mr. groves was right and the collective group was all wrong. first, let me give you the specifics of the kind of arguments that are made by mr. groves in this issue. you are required to transit on the surface and show your flight when you are on territorial seas. the problem is that this is already binding on the united states. this is the 1958 convention. in addition to that, i would think that he fails to understand the law of the sea operates reciprocally and we are not eager to see a north korean

summer rains submerged of new york city or san diego. finally, it neglects the most important point of all that one of the reasons for renegotiation is to reassure that that principle was done away with birth relation to submarines and we were quite successful in doing that. sadly, these kinds of arguments have not been of academic interest, but they have done real damage to the national security of the united states of america and every day that we do not move forward is continuing and that damage to our national security and economic interest. however well-meaning these opponents are, and they are absolutely wrong on the national

security and they are harming this nation and this is an important security and economic being able -- economic issue. this is an essential ability of the united states to be using the rules law that we want these issues in the convention and to have been thrown at us by iran and others because we are not a party is extremely harmful. there is a potential for losing our see bedsides if we do not move forward. we have already lost one that was given away to the germans. in addition to that, we are in a setting in which we are about ready to have a very substantial

delay. this is something that the senator was just talking to the group about. we have lost united states ocean leadership by failing to have a seat at the table. we do not participate except as an observer every year. we do not have a united states national representative on the continental shelf commission or the international seabed authority or the international law of the sea tribunal. that has had significant results. by not having a participant on the continental shelf commission, we have never had access to the russian submission about the arctic in that area. we have not been able to block some kind of effort to transfer

funds to a national liberation group. we have a veto in that setting. let me conclude on this by way of summarizing some of the harm into the united states if one were to support my opponent's position. supporting my opponents position is something you should do if you favor a gradual loss of sovereign rights over naval and commercial navigation on the world's oceans driven you should -- world's oceans. you should support my opponent's position if, at this time of high oil prices, you want to delay the development of oil and gas on the continental shelf.

you should support my opponent's position if you want to kill the united states seabed mining industry, permanently use u.s. mine sites and prevent the creation of mining jobs in the united states. he should support my opponent's position if you do not want the united states to participate in mining claims. he should support my opponent's position if you believe it wrong for the commission to confirm for the united states the most extensive economic zone in the world. you should support my opponent's position if you oppose stable expectations in the will all fall in the world's oceans. he should support my opponent's position if you believe that the united states should have a

diminished voice in protecting our oceans interest worldwide and the should support my opponent's position if you believe that advice from nine experts -- from non-experts are more reliable than the joint chiefs of staff, the navy, all u.s. oceans industries and a unanimous opinion of the congressional commission. thank you. [applause] >> a thank you. now, steven groves, please. >> thank you, ambassador. kinky for inviting me to debate today. -- thank you for inviting me to debate today. i have enjoyed this very much. i must it meant, it is daunting,

after listening to two days of panels about the reason to favor the treaty and come in and make arguments to opposition to it. i tried to come up with an analogy that would encapsulate that burden. this is the best that i came up with. debating about the meaning of love law of the sea treaty is like debating the meaning of the bible. let me make one concession straightaway. i do not have a problem, and i do not believe the conservatives have a problem with the treaty provisions that the navy is in favor of. it is no surprise at the heritage foundation rarely disagrees with the military or

the navy when it says that it needs something to better its operations. these are the important provisions relating to freedom of navigation transit rights. while it is debatable, and we have heard a couple handfuls raise this debate item, whether the united states enjoys these rights, i will concede that if there was a worry to secure those provisions for our navy and support them -- if there was a way to secure those provisions for our navy and support them, i would support that. if the u.s. senate could manage to save at that baby while tossing out some of the bath water, i think there would be a way to ratify this treaty. before i go into one of those

bathwater provisions, i would like to note that the freedom of navigation provisions are not airtight. while the navy contends that its operations would be greatly aided, there is evidence that when push comes to shove on the high seas, and i mean that figuratively and literally, then those conflicts are ultimately settled not by citing treaty provisions. that is done by naval power and bilateral diplomatic moves. this gives me to my first point. there is no guarantee that the u.s. interests will be a advanced by the treaty because of the unreliability of our treaty partners. the united states is faced with the situation where whether it should exceed to the treaty,

like every treaty, the u.s. must consider whether its treaty partners are going to hold up their end of the bargain. the unreliability of treaty partners is common in other treaties as well. we see this all the time. this is only one of a dozen of treaties that i am responsible for here and heritage. -- at heritage. the russians are using the treaty to claim that they will have a great deal of say over our missile defense programs. when you have an unreliable treaty partners, you really do not have a treaty. when countries do not have any intention to the here to the treaty, you have a problem. when you enter a contract with someone who does not intend to perform their end of the deal, this is similar.

we see this not through argument or panel discussions, but in the discussions that we see on the high seas with our unreliable treaty partners. after all, if members follow the treaty, the navy would have no need to prosecute its navigation program. the navy established the program back in 1979, but still utilizes it today in order to protest excessive coastal plains through diplomatic channels and exercise navigation and overflight rights in disputed areas. in fiscal year 2007, alone, the u.s. conducted challenges against china, india, indonesia,

malaysia, and the philippines. all of whom are party to this treaty. since it came into force, the u.s. has conducted hundreds of these operations against scores of nations that are party to the treaty. a significant number treaty members assert claims that already violate the trees terms -- the treaty's terms. the members of the treaty have ratified it as part of their law. they claim that they are part of the international community and they will follow this treaty and they already do not. they did not intend to when they signed the treaty, when the ratified it, and they are not doing it now. those are your treaty partners. some of these nations require notification for passage through

their territorial sea, in violation of the treaty. others claim rights to improper security controls, all in violation of the black letter law of the treaty. it is bad enough that the navy has to regularly conduct these freedom of navigation operations for the purpose of disputing these excessive claims. what is even more problematic is that when naval vessels are confronted on the high seas in the name of the treaty, i am speaking of the aggressive behavior by china. there have been several high- profile incidents. i am sure you have heard of these. the u.s. surveillance ships.

this is not a standard operation. this is a navy conducting military surveillance against china, the rise in military power in the east. the military has a growing navy and a growing submarine fleet including nuclear submarines. we monitor the comings and goings of these submarines. u.s. ships were not what of the coast of china. there were not even in china's territorial seas. in the case of the impeccable, it was the full 75 miles off of chinese territory and the other was 120 miles outside of chinese territory. prior to the existence of the treaty, these actions by china would have been called >> they are, which is naked aggression against unarmed u.s. navy ships.

now, they have muddied the waters. they are behaving in the same way as our close allies in japan. the treaty has been touted as the treaty that will draw lines in the ocean and the fine the rights of coastal states as a treat that will resolve these cases on the high seas. as i mentioned, for better or for worse, when transnational -- when true national trees are in place, and -- national treaties are in place, after the incident with the impeccable, and asian

destroyer was provided as an escort. it is no question as to whether u.s. membership in the treaty would simplify things for our navy. i am not an admiral. but i have a brain. logic dictates that you enter into a tree the with other countries that intend to live up to its terms. i do not think that is too much to ask. especially when it is black and white on the treaty. china has no intention of doing so. all of these countries do not intend to. they never did. the u.s. follows its treaty obligations for the most part 3 of think we are better than most countries in the world. -- the u.s. follows its treaty obligations for the most part. i think we are better than most

countries in the world. you have to assess the actual blow back from that. we cannot argue this treaty in a vacuum. this has been fun, but the reality is different than what it says in the basic terms of the treaty. i want to give admirals' the benefit of the doubt, but i do not think the evidence substantiates them. my favorite bathwater provision to the treaty is article 82. i heard a couple of people speak pretty divisive lee about the concept of -- pretty decisively about the concept. you're entitled to your opinion.

if you want to convince conservative senators about the benefits of this treaty, i do not think it is the best way. conservative senators and a lot of americans care about the idea of sovereignty. it is something that is important to them. you even hear the tea parties talk about sovereignty. the bath water provision i want to talk about involves sovereignty. it is article 82, which was discussed yesterday. this is a problematic provision. i am not saying that this would be the end of the world if we ratified the treaty with this provision. as fans of the treaty, you have to have a better answer to this. if you want to convince conservatives, you better come up with something more than what

we have right now. this changes the status quo. regarding the continental shelf, it is up to proponents to see that of article 82 does this. there is a status quo, and it is your jobs to convince senators and conservatives that this treaty will change the status quo. will it benefit the united states and its interest? that is your burden, not mine. article 82 is problematic because the united states currently has full sovereign rights over its own continental shelf. most importantly for exporting its national resources including oral and natural gas. -- oil and natural gas.

as you know, in 1945, president truman signed a proclamation 2667, authorizing control over the national resources of the continental shelf that proclamation was later codified by congress and made into law. this is the traditional manner to do this. truman in 1945 and congress in 1953 declared that the united states continental shelf belongs to the united states without exception. that is all sovereign nations should behave. this is our property, not yours. it is not a united nations commission that will have final say about the extent of our continental shelf or whether any revenues that are generated by our continental shelf or going to be discriminated -- are to be distributed.

the treaty will change the status quo and that is an important point to make. it places certain commercial conditions on the continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile mark, also known as the extended continental shelf. article 82 would require the united states to make royalty payments for the exploitation of mineral resources. up to 7% of the value would be paid by the united states to the international seabed authority. as we know, landlocked nations have a great deal to say about how the oceans should be regulated.

this form of royalty payments to international body empowers them to redistribute it to the developing world. the first question is who will be paying these royalties? for some of the oil and gas people in this audience, i am sure you have thought about this question yourself. as it is written, the treaty places the responsibility squarely on coastal states. what is a coastal state? >> it is me and all of you and the rest of the american taxpayers that will be required to pay up to 7% of the total value of production on our own continental shelf. this is our own continental shelf. i am not talking about the deep seabed. this is our continental shelf beyond the 200 nautical mile mark. for every billion dollars of oil or natural gas recovered in on

the extended continental shelf, the american taxpayer will be responsible for paying up to $70 million. you can see on the cover of the brochure those areas that are in red and that is our extended continental shelf. the area that is most readily cited is that it is twice the size of california. that is quite a bit of subsea lamb and there is quite a bit of oil and natural gas on that land and it may be even larger than that according to the state department website. we could be talking about real money, here. for every billion dollars, up to $70 million for the not states taxpayer.

would the u.s. seat on the finance committee guarantee that the u.s. would be able to direct all of the royalty payments as it sees fit? these are legitimate questions. these are things you have to ask yourself if you're going to convince me and other conservatives that this is in our best interest. who says that loyalties -- royalties will not be sent to countries that are hostile against the united states. for instance, cuba, saddam -- sudan they are both party to the treaty. with the money be spent with transparency and accountability? many parties have a long history of corruption in this using development funds. this is all too common and you

would only have to look at problems the program has had in north korea, thailand and burma four recent examples. the treaty counts among its members the most corrupt nations on the planet according to transparency international, including chad, somalia and other countries that are at the bottom of the annual index. i will repeat that article 82 poses a problem. you'll have to explain to average americans an average senators why the u.s. will have to make payments to an international body that may distribute the money to corrupt regimes. to wrap up, in some countries, you can keep the baby and throughout the bath water.

with the law of the sea, i do not believe that the u.s. would be able to enter the reservations necessary to keep just a baby without violating the object and purpose of the treaty. just like any other treaty that we are assessing, we need to do a cost-benefit analysis. does this advance national interest and at what cost? ambassador more maintains that he is in favor of succession and i think it is will we are debating today. i look forward to addressing some of the points raised by the ambassador. thank you. >> thank you, stephen. >> thank you, steven and thank you for coming here.

i would be eager to take the message of the right answer to this group. i was pleased that you said that the navigational and defense issues are extremely critical for the united states and you wished that there was an easy way to get that. there is. on this, i would like to start with a classic story about the importance of not looking over the obvious because i am afraid that you were looking over the obvious. that is the story of sherlock holmes and dr. watson who went camping in a tent one evening and in the middle of the night, sherlock holmes nudges watson and he's says to look up the

stars. watson looks up and said that there are millions of stars. there must be life on other planets and sherlock holmes says that he is an idiot. he said that someone stole their tents. the obvious is the inherent to the sea convention. very briefly, you do not make any kind of case as to why your economic -- one your argument -- why is your argument offsets all the important security and economic interests for the united states of america. first, let me turn to article 82. you said that the bad members violate. let's start with article 82.

the problem with your starting premise is that he was in the united states had the continental shelf in that area. it did not. under the 1952 negotiations, the question was what is going to be the outer limit for the united states? we knew we had at a broad continental margin and we wanted to do something and work in a world that would give maximum support to sovereign rights on this. we believe in sovereignty. this treaty service sovereignty. why did we do this? this was a tiny price to pay. it is 2% to 4% on the price of a

well. this expands our jurisdiction in areas probably the size of two california's if we add up both coasts of the united states and i would suggest that this is the same bargaining as the acquisition of alaska, and probably a lot better. then you have the question that these funds go to the international seabed authority and maybe they can go to corrupt nations. i am so glad that you raised that point because that is precisely the point of getting the united states on the council of the international seabed authority where we could clearly have a veto over where all of these funds would go. yes, steven, if we do not joined the convention and take her seat on the council, the council

will perhaps be able to send it to some corrupt regimes, but not if the united states is a member of the council. look at this wonderful way of aid to other developing countries. not just 2% to 4% son will go to them, but everybody else's extended continental shelf where the united states of america will have a veto. but only if the united states of america is a party. i might also add that this is a provision in which the industry does pay. the industry was the group that actually developed a formula they develop -- developed that

formula. this is actually the group that developed it for our delegation and is quite happy with that provision. let's go to the member argument. this is actually a little more extraordinary. there are 159 other members that are parties to this treaty. only 193 countries in the world. this is an overwhelming amount of the international community. steven says that because there are some bad actors out there, we should not join this treaty. that is an argument that the united states should never be able to enter into. there might be, in any kind of multilateral agreement, some bad party out there. that is the kind of crippling isolationism that i do not think is going to be very appealing.

in addition to that, it dramatically understates the importance of the treaty and specifically understates the affect of this treaty in which we have seen a pattern of nations that had previously been taking the wrong position and are now adopting and following the convention because of precisely the authority of the rules law itself. i might also add that the problems that you give, including this very sad example with china, is a very good example of precisely why the navy wants this. that provides an additional argument for the united states because we are correct in that interpretation. in order to go the other way, you have to assume that china is correct in that interpretation and they are not. i am surprised that the heritage foundation would be taking this

position on china. this is one where the majority of the international committee is very clear. i think that is an issue that also is in the long-term interests of china and i would expect that china would adopt that position. finally, it does seem to me to be an extraordinary position to take in general. are we going to say that in any setting where there are violators that we should not seek the rule of law? i would like to suggest to you that that is a fundamental reason why the rules lot is even more important. thank you. [applause]

>> we will now have steven gross for eight minutes. -- steven gross for eight minutes. -- groves for 8 minutes. but let me see if i can catch up. first, on article 82, you mention the 1958 convention and you accurately portray it. the proclamation 2667 and the continental shelf lands act, it was vague on what the continental margin was as you know. this was not based on measuring the actual end of the continental margin, but they had this vague and fully defined definition for the end of the continental margin based on accessibility. while the 1958 definition was bad, the controlling definition

was that set by truman and congress and they made it quite clear. in the truman proclamation, this is how things used to be done to rid the government of the united states regards the seabed of the continental shelf beneath the high seas, and it is subject to the united states control. thank you, president truman. congress added and define the continental shelf. all submerged lands, see word and outline what additional waters, in which the subsoil and seabed pertain to the united states and are subject to its jurisdiction and control. so, i do not find the 1958

convention argument very persuasive. it was a week definition -- it was a weak definition. what is interesting, it is not the final say. who draws those lines? the best that can be said about the treaty is that our continental margin, where it would be drawn, would only allow maximum recognition by the international community. but that is not a standard i am particularly happy with, anyway. i think it is up to the navy, the congress, the president and the american people who put those people into office to decide where our continental margin in. we do not need to seek the approval of an international

organization. we do not need to sign a treaty with chad and somalia and france and denmark to have our own continental margin defined. that is up to us. we decide that and it is our continental margin. they can no more defiant that for us than they can define the margins on the moon to us. in the deep sea area, and they have no more right to that and they cannot call that the common heritage of all mankind any more than they can call the moon and mars the common heritage of all mankind. if we were to find our way to mars and find a mineral that was worth in millions of dollars, would we have to distribute those funds to an international organization?

it is just as accessible as the deep seabed right now. we will have to set up a new authority to distribute these funds to countries that do not have a space program? this is the type of weird -- this was brought up earlier, this construct of the economic order and the common heritage of all mankind silliness. that is the kind of thing that conservatives get upset about. those are the arguments that you need to bring to them. we do not have a seat on the commission so we cannot define our margin. we do not buy that. at the end of the day, we decide where our land in and where it starts. that is up to us. in terms of who pays the royalty

payments, i do hope that there is ultimately an answer to this. there were two bulletins on the website about this, so i went to peruse them, hoping to get an ice executive summary. it turns out that each of these technical bulletins is about 85 to 150 pages long. this is a single article on the treaty. a treaty that has over 400 articles. this one article, article 82, got two bulletins that you the proper table up with. -- that you could prompt a table off with. the treaty says that the state's parties will pay these royalties. when president clinton transfer the treaty to the senate for ratification, it noted that it

would be the united states that would be responsible for making payments because the administration justified the revenue sharing as modest and part of the package that establishes the control of the coastal states over the full extent of their geological continental margins. nowhere in that treaty document does it state or imply that any other entity but the united states and its taxpayers are responsible for the will to payments. some will say that it is going to be a to the industry and they will have to pay that. -- be up to the industry, and they will have to pay that. he testified back in 2004 that our understanding is that this will to should not result in any additional cost to industry. . .

i have a different approach to this treaty. this is a very debatable whether the agreement made improvements

or made it all of the fixes were conservatives would be set aside. the treaty can be great. the u.s. hold treaties and their language to be sacrosanct. we believe in those words, we try to follow them.

when these come on line, they're not as reliable as we would like them to be. so what if we are party to the international convention on civil and political rights. we respected the civil and political rights of our people. to become a party to this treaty, i think that you should be able to rely on the good faith if you're treaty partners. they signed up to these

treaties with their eyes open but no intention of following the treaty. bahau is that give you any certainty -- how does that give you any certainty that we will rely on these provisions? would we had not sent the destroyer to the south china sea? what we have gone to the railing of the shift and waved to the china in the air. this is ridiculous. -- would we have gone to the railing of the ship and waved the treaty in the air? >> this is a different kind of question but this is not quite a kosher question. if you are arguing this particular issue from the other side, would be the most forceful arguments you could muster.

>> there are not any. this is the approach that will never convince conservatives. there's nothing wrong, no flaws. >> we have heard from a conservative, we have heard one particular viewpoint so i will respond to those issues. one of the problems that have generally with the opposition. the outer continental shelf uses the language that goes into the

area beyond 200 nautical miles. this was a major win for the u.s. to get this. this was hugely beyond anything contemplated by the german occupation -- truman proclamation. it was a bargain to get that for nothing more than 2%-4% of oil revenues. you are wrong about the function of the continental shelf commission. they cannot decide on the outer edge of the continental margin of the u.s. or any other country. this is a mechanism in which you

submit in order to try to keep the various submissions, it is the initiative of vix the -- initiative of the u.s. because we did not want unilateralism across the oceans of the u.s.. they can only send this back to your partners. you can basically except the issue. only a limit accepted by the u.s. would be binding by the u.s.. there are claims that they should be free to decide. why not claim an archipelago? how about the straight baseline system?

for the launch of the sea is reciprocal, this works the other way around. one of our core concerns in protecting all of this is to make sure there is a reasonable rule of law. not only is it reasonable in this case, the united states of america has the largest area of any nation in the world. we really came out like gangbusters. it seems to me your last argument is nothing more than once again an overly broad argument against the rule of law itself. yes, there will be violators, yes they are bad guys, one of the mechanisms that you use to try to control that is precisely the rule of law. >> we will now ask the audience to participate. please wait for the microphone.

we would like to have you identify yourself. you may direct your question to one of the panelists for the correct response. >> raise your hand so the microphone can find you. >> i think your claim that there is not a concession of sovereignty is just wrong. every treaty is a concession of sovereignty. this is currently a small

bureaucracy. i think you have two things. you overlooked the fact that this is much better to take the diplomatic and even military action with the law on your side. would you attribute is to not upon by the law and attempts to seek a better interpretation and what have you. it is the chart he meant that the offending party is violating the agreement and they might be

changing this customary law. dino of any companies that are willing to make this on the basis of the truman declaration and the congressional action in the 1958 convention. >> both will feel free to respond to the comment as they wish. >> yes, i agree that it is best to go on to something with the law on your side.

when we are in their zone not conducting economic activity or purely military surveillance, you try to find nuclear subs. great to go to court with a lot on your side. what if somehow china decided that they were going to prosecute this case. what if we try to come to the conclusion of the weather our activities are military or

economic? we have not fare well in these tribunals. the west is not a farewell. clarke's is better to have the lot on your side than not. >> we know what the law is and the chinese are not following it. i don't know of any companies who are willing to go out based on the truman proclamation.

if the u.s. would like those companies out there, gives them the assurances they need. >> what you expected to do? >> write the law, get the president to sign it. you're telling me that the u.s. government does not have the ability to write something that will give assurances to the government? >> there are no firms prepared

to do that at this point. there is legislation which recognizes the revenue-sharing provision. there is some congressional action dealing with that and very much counter to your arguments. let's come to your point. i am always interested in your viewpoint. you're absolutely wrong with the notion that the notion that all treaties 2 and part of the sovereignty of any country it insures and to, specifically

under u.s. foreign relations law, you can never violate the constitution. you can never deal with a setting in which congress would not have the ability to override the treaty obligations. you have a setting of international legal obligation that is important. the only way that we could lose sovereignty was to alter the constitution. we did release sovereignty. you do not and tear into a treaty because they always leave the ability to violate this as a matter of public law.

>> i would like to make a few comments. i will speak as the capacity to the law of the sea conference. who profited the most from the convention? certainly not a be geographically disadvantaged countries. those countries that profited most are those with many items. there is a revolutionary concept in the invention of the exclusive zone. this really benefits developing

countries the most? no. >> please ask your question. >> i wouwas surprised that the u.s. did not adhere to the law of the sea convention because they have the most to gain. if you renegotiate these provisions a day, this would not have been in the same manner. if the lot of the sea is left to drift, this would drift in the direction of constant state control and limitation of freedom. it is up to you. >> would either of you like to comment? >> i could not agree more. we have a huge achievement for the u.s. in this convention.

we would not be able to negotiate treaty that well for the u.s.. it is astounding that the country in the world that is given the largest expansion of resource jurisdiction in the world would in fact not 15 years later have signed on to the convention. we got all of these six points that we asked for in a renegotiation, the u.s. was committed by the other states, not then to move forward to except the treaty is to dramatically undermined our ability and the future to be taken seriously and negotiations. given the reagan amendments.

there is a mythology about the rhetoric of the common heritage or the new economic order. yes, there was some of that in the early seventies. what is the reality of this negotiation? it is precisely what was said. this is the greatest expansion of national resources jurisdiction in the history of the world. the winners are the coastal nation of the world. the coastal nations have dramatically expanded their interest that sovereignty is all about sovereign rights.

i will accept that they could not have been negotiated better than that. that is something that is separate and divorced from the deep seabed mining. i am by the that they got the provisions that they did. i wish to would have brought my side on this. i should have anticipated this. in his biography, which quoted his diary and he said, just had

the national security council meeting, still would not push for ratification or support ratification regardless of the deep seabed provision. i don't that this -- he would not support it regardless of the six changes. >> please don't and the microphone around before i select the questionnaire. >> i'm not sure if you are on yesterday's discussion. my question for the panel is

those of us that operate ships but not navies to enforce maritime boundaries, what recourse do we have to help us negotiate disputes asserting greater rights. many states are not abiding by this. the only way that we can push back is, what other avenues do we have? >> i was at the first two panels

yesterday. after the second panel to work on this debate. i'm not up to speed on what your presentation was. i am sure that there are small or multilateral arrangements. the destination where the cable is going, you have a starting point for your cable and an ending point. you have two countries interested in making this successful. >> many of our national cables but transit, many of those are

at sea. we are in a situation now where permits are required. >> you are telling me that there are parties or not following the terms? well, there are some corrupt countries out there. we need to rely on our government to help ease those. >> i think this is really one of

the response of navigation alone. the united states has many other interests and the critical infrastructure of cables. we have a substantial industry to kickoff. we have the largest sovereign rights of the continental shelf recognized anywhere in the world. you're absolutely right, we needed this. >> i will take one more question.

i will take this question right here. >> speaking as a former member of the senate's, i would ask you where in the report in the investigation that you used to surf? just conclude that you would for anything other than legitimate development purposes in north korea? how do you side with the right calculus in deciding whether this is a national interest or not? if you can find a hypothetical

that might be adverse to the united states or a single provision. if you can find that, you can advise or senators not to approve the treaty. i don't say this frivolously at all. it would appear that that is the assumption by one of our making. if that is not your calculation, how do you weigh this? >> on the first question, i will have to refer you to mark a green button