what fox news does the facts you know fox sports goes to funny they just completely watch it but you know there's a unifying principle of racism there approximate it's nice it's nice to know they keep it. a little over there but you know i really think it's a very sick do you think they were trying to make fun of those people i mean it could be more racist sure i mean they could've added word different types of minorities to make fun of and i think the fact that they targeted. people with clearly english wasn't their first language and only that you know i'm sure they're especially on that campus where english is their first language and they would have been able to say it in an american accent and clearly just show the ones that. it's time to make fun of them i think maybe you guys are just being too hard on asian americans were a little you know i mean it's all right let's move on let's talk about some other people that got caught on camera and some slightly different the president's job speech was last night of course and vice president biden and house speaker john

boehner kind of talking about their favorite sport the problem is it was caught on tape. true. story. or service. through the search. for a great experience. i mean it just goes on and on is that not too good to kind of capture what rushing to is really thinking about better than forty minutes of what obama said that the more entertaining. old way guys like gold could have told you that yeah but come on isn't this troubling to our country is in such tough times i mean it's things are dire obama's trying to introduce a plan give a speech and they're talking about golf and laughing about it and it's like the one thing they can come together certainly isn't it comforting to know that the left

and the right can agree on something golf i don't mean right as head obama for being out of touch for being on the golf course and here the guy's not even on the golf course and he's talking about eric massa it makes you question his small talk skills to i mean he goes with golf and imagine walking in a bar or you know or at a tailgate party and he's talking about the best while back you know maybe i mean it's just really kind of wildly out of touch. i guarantee any time that someone on the right is going to like hammer obama for being out on the golf course people on the left are going to replay that clip as much as a month usually can overhear talking about his golf and they've got to get in again so they got some fodder for people on the left moving on california's governor jerry brown has been issuing a few vetoes recently and one of the latest has to do with a bill that would require kids who ski or snowboard to wear a helmet and if they don't then parents would get a twenty five dollar fine but check out this letter he wrote to support that veto he said well i appreciate the value of wearing a ski how that i'm concerned about the continuing and seemingly inexorable transfer

of authority from parents to the state not every human problem deserves a law. well you guys think is this a win for brown or should you be wearing helmets and you personally i mean i think there should absolutely be a law for my problems every time i talk with a bill i can afford there should be a law but that should be a felony if i can afford it but i mean you know i think in reality he has kind of a point you know what point do you draw the line between. parents having common sense to see this is the problem that i have the worst zooming that all parents have common sense and i think that's kind of an elitist view i mean there are a lot of kids that have negligent care and they don't get the proper parenting that allows them to where i know that they need to wear a helmet when they ski i don't know i kind of think that there's something to do. especially in california like at the bottom of the memo jerry brown says oh i think the parents of kids in california are responsible enough to make decisions on their

own for their own safety like when it was california done anything good in the last thirty years other than like mainstream pornography in metallica television all of us from california i swear we turn to another doctor a member of society. if i see it i would i would need anybody to tell me to fair enough fair enough all right so let's leave it at that we don't want to get too crazy our next story is about a woman who might be watching way too much of this show. all right this woman. thought she was a cast member of a deli she was arrested after she bit the neck and face of an elderly man in a wheelchair who is an electric wheelchair she attacked him bit off piece of his

skin pieces of his skin said she was a vampire. maybe she was to our team outward i mean that's possible but really this is america at its best norman rockwell would be really proud because i mean it's just it's pretty it's pretty appalling and i think what's most interesting about this is the police arrested both the woman who put me on a no i tricked her and they like the guy in the electric earth i'm sorry but you know what are we going to electric wheelchair also had better us a couple times and you know they call this a crime but it's hooter's a good it's just on the eve it was just involved in some kind of role playing that went very very wrong we're going to leave it on that note though this of course happened in florida which just as far as i'm sorry it happened in florida but that's not to do it thanks for being here guys are going friday and that is going to do it for tonight show thanks for tuning in to make sure to come back on monday alone i will do that she will be talking about the latest developments with the europe and so prices seem to be melting down and what it means for the u.s.

in the meantime do not forget to become a fan of the alone or selling facebook and follow us on twitter if you missed any of tonight's show or any other night you can catch it all online at youtube dot com slash a lot of show and coming up next stay right there it's minutes. rachel martin here broadcasting live from washington d.c. coming up today on the big picture of.

what used to date violence is once again flared up. and these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. china operations are all day.

hello i'm john martin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture in our conversations with great minds veteran war journalist and author edward jerry day joins me to talk about his latest book killing the crane's which means an in-depth look inside his thirty years of reporting on some of the world's greatest we will also get his take on america's current situation in afghanistan also last night the president unveiled the american jobs act before a joint session of congress so will both parties work together to pass this bill and one of the political implications of last night's speech and the internet's

daily take it's the new deal versus the raw deal of president obama's speech can finally put our nation back on the right track maybe. birthrights the conversations of the great minds i'm joined with by edward gerard day he is a journalist author and television documentary producer since the late one nine hundred seventy s. he's reported from some of the world world's harshest war and crisis sones from africa to asia the middle east and europe for major european the major american publications including national geographic magazine the christian science monitor the international herald tribune and the financial times he's also written numerous books chronicling his experiences and insights on the people and politics that he's covered as a journalist he's also the founding director of the institute for media and global

governance based in geneva switzerland he first reported on afghanistan just before the soviet invasion in one hundred seventy nine and served as an eyewitness to some . that country's tumultuous events over the past thirty years his latest book killing the cranes or borders a journey through three decades of war in afghanistan is a personal account of the people wars and strife that has defined that nation for more than a generation and with our nation now stuck in a decades long war in afghanistan because insights are much needed. welcome to the program thanks very much thank you for being with us killing the cranes cranes. well it goes back to a encounter i had with mustard holy who was a friend of mine who was very severely wounded when masood the great northern commander of the northern alliance was assassinated by al qaeda actually today twenty ten years ago and clearly was wounded severely with over two going to pieces

of shrapnel i went to see him in two thousand and four in march two thousand and four and we talked a very long rather depressing conversation kabul about the future of afghanistan the impact of so many wars since april one thousand seventy eight's in afghanistan on the afghan people he maintained they were a nation traumatized also wasn't quite sure where everything was going with the international community and as you walked outside we looked up into the this amazing night sky but you only get in afghanistan with all the stars and he said you know for me the end of march was always the time when you couldn't hear the sound of your voice for the migrating cranes and what he was referring to were these siberian cranes that would fly from the southern weapons where they wintered up to the north to siberia northern russia every march and then he said you know i hadn't heard a single crane since being here and then he sort of touched my arm and said we even

killed all the cranes and i put those a very symbolic point on its head they. are an endangered species you know. the martians but also. they they have been wiped out also in india and elsewhere but you know i think the wars probably have an impact remarkable. some just like really simple stuff that most americans are confused about tragically so afghans are not arabs oh absolutely not on that a little bit because i think most americans have the kind of fox news viewer you know all muslims are the same enormous sums are arabs and all muslims are somehow related to. the rate. there are striking people. through different diverse group of people who have the pashtuns in the east in the south there are the tajiks the north the very mediterranean people you have the has are as the minority shia in the central highlands are actually we believe to be the. means of thousand any parent we left one thousand soldiers

to maintain his for his southern borders and so it's a very diverse people and as a nation it somehow has existed but not necessary the way we think of it also during the one nine hundred eighty s. when the united states china and other countries saudi arabia pakistan got heavily involved in afghanistan against the soviets the arabs came in and you know the the arab legionnaires the islamic legionnaires who gave support to the fundamentalists afghan groups but even you know the most fundamental mentalists afghans never like the arabs they consider them arrogant and the the arabs consider them not real muslims and the arabs are probably the most famous for americans of the arabs who came in was osama bin laden thing and. the us did us help establish the taliban. indirectly absolutely

during the eighty's we were the cia provided most of its support through the pakistani i.s.i. the military intelligence organization which was ludicrous because i saw i had its own agenda the american agenda was really to give the soviets their own vietnam was not really there for the afghans we talked a lot about freedom fighters supporting them and the whole charlie wilson's war exactly exactly which also by the way the film misrepresented the situation we supported this rather nasty individual called ghobadi hekmatyar who was an extremist hated americans killed a lot of moderate afghans and is now one of the leading insurgent politicians against the u.s. and nato in afghanistan so we created that we listen to we could nord a lot of the really good commanders inside afghanistan many who are moderates such as most sued were abdul hakim another one of pashtoon and during the one nine hundred ninety s. after the civil war which was a brutal civil war the battle for kabul where he was shelling more those killed as

many as fifty thousand afghans during the soviet war it kabul was untouched practically it was actually the civil war between amongst the afghans which destroyed the city it looked like resident i was there in one thousand three badly badly destroyed so after they had driven the soviets up this after they'd been surrogates out and then when the telephone began to emerge many afghans actually supported the taliban because the taliban promised peace security and they did do that but when they came into power in kabul in september one nine hundred ninety six they began to repress the other minority groups such as the tajiks that was ours that was specs and in that time the u.s. wasn't well unocal an american company with a consortium to. exactly understand i mean to me to stand in the right things and from from the oil fields to the power plant that was being built by general electric i think exactly exactly and they supported they they preferred to have one government. in afghanistan and the irony as well which people seem to forget is

that vice president cheney. made a grant of forty three million dollars to the taleban in the spring of two thousand and one so you know the opium production to start the open and in fact they did i mean you look at the chart of opium production and there's this giant so it doesn't mean it was necessarily stop because they were against opium made in market hedge to get the prices so that's also a factor you get out of get out of production that's to get them back exactly exactly to take that money from show exactly that's that's quite remarkable you started. your observation your reporting from afghanistan in seventy nine the right war the soviet thing you know you've been there through that through the american invasion i mean you know now through you know. there's we talked about the mythology of charlie wilson's war that the movie and the mythology very much is that you know we bankrupted the soviet union with that. and yet we've

been there now longer i think than the soviets were certainly learned within it anywhere else right and bin ladin in his video tape that he sent out just before the two thousand or i think it was november of two dozen or so you know for every dollar that he spends and america spending a million and his plan is to bleed astride like you blood the soviets to try to understand is there some truth to the or or or fallacy to the to the to the analogy between these two yeah i mean it's extremely costly war or involvement. in two thousand and one two thousand and two after nine eleven many people on the ground the information was there there were aid workers there were americans at work before the usa id people in the state department who had experience on the ground and also numerous international aid organizations such as care which has been there you know for sixty years the sweetest. for afghanistan which operated

clandestinely during the soviet war. have a lot of afghans working for they really understood the on the ground situation and the big warnings in two thousand and two was don't throw money at afghanistan and recognize that it will take many years possibly twenty or thirty years to bring about real recovery to bring a real end to this conflict don't get involved militarily that is disastrous and a lot of recommendations you know keep small focus on the rural areas where eighty percent of afghans live and yet this was ignored we brought in the warlords we brought in a lot of the discredited politicians resistance politicians from the one nine hundred eighty s. who were thoroughly corrupt i mean they pushed themselves along side the pakistanis and we put them into power the american ambassador i think it was an egregious mistake to put in the afghan as the u.s. ambassador to afghanistan because every afghan knew the guy's baggage he didn't

think we understand afghanistan very well and they saw him with great admiration you know local boy done good and but he made a big mistake i think of not allowing not bringing back the former king zahir shah would a few more years to live not because he was a great king in fact he was a lousy king but he represented a period of the one nine hundred seventy s. where most afghans look back i remember that as a nostalgic period of peace and he could have been used as a figurehead that would have brought together a lot of the afghans from different groups the pashtuns the tajiks but that was not so what people were actually quite excited about the americans coming with the international community coming in and they thought finally an end to the war but that's just did not happen and when they saw that they brought in the warlords and his corrupt individuals one time. two thousand and two june two thousand and two with the first loya jirgah this is. a grand assembly and many that wasn't before

the bombings or so this is after the bombing this was june two thousand and two the bombing began october seventh two thousand and one this is the first attempt to bring about real democracy a lot of people including the women you know health workers educated educated afghan women thought you know now we're going to have a say but when they saw the warlords brought in or these individuals who. who who use or the whole situation they realized they weren't going to have a say so dissolution began to set in and you know it was like this one mistake after another and these were mistakes which didn't have to happen i mean the british went in in two thousand and two two thousand and three promised tribal afghans in these areas who are grown poppy saying allow us to destroy your crops i will compensate you the compensation did not happen so that left a lot of very angry farmers and farmers whether they're in canada or australia or afghanistan or the states they all think the same way they want

a product they can sell they want to make a living. f.d.r. i mean this is a big thing was all the farmers. be according to cia factbook at the time that we began bombing afghanistan in two thousand and one the g.n.p. or the g.d.p. of that nation was two billion dollars so here you've got a country the second poorest country in the world with a g.d.p. of two billion dollars. the bush administration had effectively the year before at least reduced the opium. you know we don't know how but forty million bucks was a lot of money. it was reported the washington post. that the taliban had offered to arrest osama bin laden and turn him over to a third country not the united states which with their country for trial if the bush administration would present any evidence that he was had something to do write a lot and i pretty much everybody was horrified a lot of how different would the world be even george bush and. arrest him.

put him on trial in the hague or something like that you know would present the evidence and by the way here's a couple billion dollars to rebuild your country and we're spending really respect started a thousand billion there now so exactly how different would the world be if there are two aspects one was in two thousand and one there was actually a growing and to tell a lie and saying developed i must suit. some other moderate commanders and they were bringing in a lot of tol'able who were becoming totally disenchanted with the party started dominance the dominance of the arabs the all the evidence of saudi arabia we cannot forget saudi arabia both were supporting the taliban massively but there was this this dissolution and because of americans and the dominance and pakistan of the eyesight but was sought to run afghanistan and you know afghans don't take kindly to outsiders regardless whether the americans or al-qaeda. so this was building up

with the russians and anyone else a list of thirty forty players this you know but thankfully and so this is growing and mustard warns us about this and when all kind of assassinated killed sued september ninth one of the reasons was to give a present to the tell about them because they'd already taken eighty percent of the country and mehsud was was the last significant commander to resist the taleban but they were also afraid that the taliban were in the process of collapsing and that this might have happened but this was ignored by the bush administration and by blair tony blair in the u.k. . and after nine eleven. but you have to know the taliban were primarily illiterate people they're called taliban that means scholars they weren't scholars they were illiterate you had a leadership perhaps of thirty forty people who probably knew what bin laden was up to globally but most mossad one had no clue and really didn't care you know they

they they really didn't and they were a faction in a civil war so i think you know had we gone with that there was already the basis of a new alliance and. mustard and i will hook wanted to involve the taliban in this new broad alliance because that's the only way it's going to work even today you have to involve any everyone even after the soviet war when the soviets left the regime the communist regime and. others wanted to bring in former communists as long as they accepted the notions of you know had bush taken that offer there might be a stable afghanistan i think would be a very good chance there was no need for this war that's you know if this war our conversation with journalist edwards or it will continue or we come back just.

really. ah.

welcome back to conversations of great minds tonight i'm joined by journalist and author edward is your day is latest book killing the crane's chronicles his experiences as a journalist in afghanistan during three decades of conflict in that nation you actually expect saw the three decades. i got white hair. very dark. it's what one of the lessons from from that this thirty years that you've seen in afghanistan is that americans. and americans and europeans i mean you know we're all in this dance together it seems should know that we don't know or that we seem not to be whether it's a policy level or the average person rather should know to understand how we go forward. i think to understand what's happening today you've got to go back to the and i did it is you have to look at the past thirty thirty five years what happened

in afghanistan and also the fact that even slightly further during the sixty's and seventy's the u.s. and the soviet union were competing with each other out hating each other as much as possible but what it did do was it produced a lot of americans including peace corps for example a lot of people there in two thousand. who learned a great deal about i've got a sense that we do have knowledge. people within the us eighty and you know other institutions but the fact is we have to understand that afghans have always disliked foreigners who compose themselves it doesn't matter who they are or who they were they were always welcomed foreigners as long as they remain as guests i mean i didn't know that quality right exactly and i didn't have you know once i did it was at the time did a lot and in one nine hundred eighty nine and this is the point i made to him he said this is not your jihad what are you doing here and i said i will be here as long as my hosts allow me to be here but i will leave if they require me to leave

because i'm sure you will leave if your hosts require you to leave and that in fact did happen in the early one nine hundred ninety s. the afghan mujahideen kicked out the arabs including the likes of bin laden because of this arrogance because they were there not for afghanistan they were there for their own agenda and so everyone has been involved with afghanistan has been for their own agendas and not for the agendas of the afghans so i think one has to really pay attention to that with god what's happened so. here we are now you know with with flypaper you know sickly. and you know one hundred cars as brother half brother or whatever just recently assassinated. the levels of corruption. cynicism here in this country about. our's eyes former associations are . you know. what.

that is if you say you were advising the president well i would say first of all forget any military options you know everything is been run by the military and you know why allow generals to decide and i feel very sympathetic to a lot of these soldiers we've asked them to become soldiers aid workers development workers relief workers i mean you name it you can expect them to do that afghanistan can only be resolved i think through proper and effective recovery including investment it's going to be an of evolved people who understand that can instead and it's got to be led by afghans themselves the trouble with the military is that you know many go in for six months that's their stand maybe a year they cannot possibly begin to understand i've got to set in that period and in fact i was in the u.k. recently and talked to two world marine officers who were returning the next morning to helmand and they were extremely angry they said this is.