afghanistan, are we fighting the right war? >> there's no point us getting into a fight with six million afghans, when our real target is probably a few hundred terrorists who have the capacity to harm the united states. our real issue is not who wants to harm the united states, our real issue is who can. >> and, investing in women of the world. >> good social change philanthropy can be a ripple of change that spreads out, catalyzing women's voices on all issues of importance. >> stay tuned.

>> from our studios in new york, >> kherz: welcome to the journal. i'm lynn sherr, sitting in for bill moyers, who's away this week. afghanistan was supposed to be the war that made sense, if any war can be said to make sense. that's where the masterminds behind 9/11 were hiding. end of story. eight years later, and we're still there, at a cost exceeding 220 billion dollars. more than 1,400 have been killed among american troops and our nato allies. this week, a classified report from by the american commander in afghanistan, general stanley mcchrystal, was leaked to the

press, a report that called for as many as 40,000 additional u.s. troops, without which, the general wrote, our effort, "...will likely result in failure." if approved by president obama, our military force there would escalate to more than 100,000. the president's in a fix. he can accede to the general's wish, despite fading support from congress and the american public, gambling on success or wading deeper into a vietnam- like quagmire. or he can cut back, as he is being urged by vice president joe biden and others. they believe we should stop trying to nation-build and restore the mission's original intent: protect america from terrorism by concentrating firepower on al-qaeda. for all its beauty, afghanistan is a difficult, mountainous land of corrupt warlords, complex alliances and ancient tribal hatreds. it has defied occupation by

outside forces since the time of alexander the great, and it is, in the words of my guest, "a graveyard of predictions," where nothing is as it seems or goes as planned. rory stewart may know afghanistan better than any other westerner. a professor and director of the carr center for human rights policy at harvard university, stewart is a former british soldier and foreign service officer. his expertise on the region has gained him the ear of secretary of state hillary clinton, u.s. special envoy richard holbrooke, and the u.s. senate, where last week he testified before the senate foreign relations committee. back in 2002, shortly after the start of the war in afghanistan, stewart traveled the entire country by foot, a death-defying, 6000-mile trek chronicled in his book "the places in between." rory stewart, welcome to the journal. >> thank you very much. >> sherr: let me start by asking, what in heavens name

made you decide to walk across afghanistan, at a time when there was a war on? >> i didn't... i really believe that in order to talk about a country you need to spend time in villages, because this is a country where 80%, 90% of the population live in villages, and if you spend your time in an embassy compound or dealing with other diplomats or dealing with fancy cabinet ministers, you simply miss the tenor of it. so the privilege for me was that, on that walk-- and i also walked across iran, pakistan, india, nepal- i stayed in 500 different village houses. night after night, i sat on people's floor, i heard them talk about their families, about religion, about the government. by the end of it, i had a little bit more confidence in my work, so if i'm asked, "are we going to be able to beat the taliban and build a state?" having spent some time in those village houses gives me a little bit more confidence in saying, "these people may not completely be with the program in the way that you expect." >> sherr: you wri,e very eloquently about the country. and y%t you're a realist.

you don't romanticize it. give me, give us a sense of what it was like from the foot-walker point of view. >> well, one thing is that afghans were incredibly generous and kind to me. i walked alone from one end of the country to the other at a time when there was no government. so, the first lesson i took away from that is how good these communities are in surviving in the absence of the government. it wasn't only they took me into their houses, but they looked after my security, they accompanied me from village to village, often at great personal risk to themselves. so, that's the upside. on the other side, of course, i noticed sitting night after night in these village houses that people are quite conservative. they're quite suspicious of foreigners. they don't know a great deal about the outside world. i mean, one of the things that's a little misleading about people who say, "if we don't fight the taliban in afghanistan, we're going to have to fight them in the streets of the united states" is that most of these people we're dealing with can barely read or write. they live very limited lives

where, in the winter, they're basically holed-up in their houses. they're often three hours walk from the nearest village. the idea that they're somehow going to turn up on the streets of the united states with a train of goats behind them in order to conduct war here is a bit misleading. they couldn't find the united states on a map. >> sherr: you talked before, about our goals in afghanistan. the president has a big decision to make-- more troops, not more troops.@ lay it out for us, is that what he's facing? >> i think the psident has defined a very, very narrow objective. he's said that we're there to do counter-terrorism. that's what he's been saying since january. but then he said in order to get there, we need this huge project, which amounts really to building a state, that's all dressed up in this language of counterinsurgency, fighting the taliban. so we end up in this paradox, where we have this very small objective, which is to protect the united states against terrorist attack, but on the president's order, in order to get there, we need to defeat the taliban, we need to bring development, we need to create legitimate, effective governmental structures. >> sherr: and that means, according to the leaked report,

either more troops or not more troops. >> absolutely. so, the military, which is leading the fight against the taliban, says that if you really want to build this kind of state, if you really want to defeat the taliban, we're going to need many more troops. general mcchrystal's asked for another 40,000, but when i was testifying on the senate foreign relations committee on wednesday, a colonel sitting next to me said they needed 600,000 total. which is both afghan and u.s. troops, but would... would be a huge footprint on the ground. >> sherr: you're saying that what general mcchrystal is said to have asked for is this 40,000-- you're saying, in fact, that's not going to be the final request? >> no, my imagination is that the american military will continue task for more and more. because if they're saying 600,000 total is what they want, and let's say that's about 400,000 afghan police and army, that'll be about 200,000 international forces. so i'd like to go back to the military and say, "why are you only asking for 40,000, if your doctrine actually requires far more than that?" and the answer probably is that's as much as they think they can get away with, which

isn't really the kind of answer we want to hear. >> sherr: if you were a betting fellow, how would you bet president obama is going to respond to this request? >> i'd say president obama has no choice. if he's not going to send the troops, he should have stopped the general from sending in the report. he's now completely boxed in. >> sherr: but he's indicating that there's not only a lot of wiggle room, but that he's actually reconsidering. >> i think it would be a political catastrophe for the president to refuse to accede to a request from the man on the ground. broadly speaking, this is a civilian president. he's said that he believes in defeating the taliban. he believes in building a legitimate effective state. there's a highly respected general on the ground- who's backed up by admiral mullen, who's backed by general petraeus - saying we need 40,000 more troops. it would be almost inconceivable, at this stage, for the president to refuse that request. >> sherr: so, this is an image problem, in part, for the president. >> it's an image problem. it's also the way he's framed the problem. he said that he wants to build a legitimate effective state and defeat the taliban.

he's asked the experts what their view ar%. the experts have come back and said, "if yowant to do that, give me 40,000 more troops." >> sherrwhoa, whoa, but he's also said, certainly recently, "maybe we need to reassess. we need to figure out exactly what we do want to." isn't he giving himself a chance to maybe change the objective? >> no. i don't honestly believe he is. and furthermore, i'm a little bit surprised that he's going around saying that he's skeptical. if he's actually skeptical and not sure about the strategy-- maybe it's inappropriate for me to talk about this kind of stuff-- but he shouldn't have allowed the general to produce the report in the first place. he could have easily said to general mcchrystal two or three months ago, listen, to be honest, i'm not sure about this state-building, defeating the taliban stuff. so, just hold a second. that isn't really the strategy anymore. i don't want a report on that. i don't want to know how many troops you need for that. i want to focus on a much narrower counter-terrorism strategy. but it's too late now. he's defined it. the general has provided his advice. and i would be extremely surprised if the president doesn't come out in favor.

>> sherr: president obama has made it clear that he wants two things to happen in afghanistan, right? he wants us to rout the taliban and build a safe country for the afghanis. and, by the way, not have a place for al qaeda to operate from, correct? >> correct. >> sherr: what's wrong with those goals? >> so, the problem is that these are all quite different objectives. in and of themselves, they're fine. but they're not connected, necessarily, in the way the president thinks. there's a huge theory that everything that we want to do is somehow connected. the stability of pakistan. the security of the united states. beating the taliban. beating al qaeda. bringing development to the afghan people. we end up in a bit of a muddle, because we tend to be pursuing five objectives at once, assuming that they all amount to the same thing. the real problem is that some of these things just may not be possible. they may be possible over the long term for afghans themselves to build a stable state. but it's probably a project of decades. it needs indigenous leadership, a sort of afghan thomas

jefferson, to rebuild its state. it's not something that foreigners can come in and do from outside. the united states, its allies, are quite good at certain kinds of things-- building roads, providing some training to the military, helping to build hospitals and schools. but building a state is a project for a founding father. the same with fighting the taliban. again, they have quite a lot of support from villages in the south of afghanistan. and the kabul government, as we saw in the last election, just doesn't have much credibility or support. it's perceived as having won in a corrupt fashion, and it's going to be very difficult for the united states to try to put itself between the kabul government and the taliban. >> sherr: so, you're saying that the goals are simply wrong? >> i'm saying that the goals are absolutely mistaken in terms of u.s. national security, and probably in the end in terms of the interests of the afghan people. >> sherr: they're wrong because we can't accomplish them? or because it's not what we should be trying to do? >> we can't accomplish them. and in trying to do so, we're often making the situation worse. afghanistan is very poor, very fragile, very traumatized.

to rebuild a country like that would take 30 or 40 years of patient, tolerant investment, and probably that's what we should be aiming for. but in order to do that, we need to have a presence there which is affordable, which is quite small, which is realistic, and which the american people will endorse. people aren't going to put up with over 100,000 troops on the ground and this level of casualties forever. so, probably better for us, better for the afghans, would be to step back and say, "hey, we're not going to try to do all this stuff. we've got two very limited objectives. we'd like to make sure that al qaeda doesn't significantly increase its ability to harm the united states, and we'd like to do something for the afghan people. and we recognize that doing those two things is a very long term process, and so, we probably need fewer troops, not more." >> sherr: how many troops do you believe are needed in afghanistan right now? >> not that many. i would have thought what you needed from point of view of al qaeda, counterterrorism is probably 10-20,000 special forces and intelligence operatives. doing pretty much what they've

been doing quite successfully over the last seven, eight years. people are saying we've failed in the counterterrorism objective, of course, we haven't really. osama bin laden isn't in afghanistan. al qaeda hasn't got bases in afghanistan. and i think we could continue to ensure that was the case. >> sherr: with 10 or 20,000 troops on the ground, can we, can the united states, can the allies, "a" keep the taliban out? and "b" keep al qaeda out? >> we need to distinguish between taliban and al qaeda. the answer is, of course, if we reduce the troop numbers, the taliban presence, particularly in the areas where they have a lot of support would grow. and that is a risk. and that's a problem. and it's a very sad thing. because the taliban are a horrendous group. i mean, this is the problem that we're dealing with here. they have been vicious, their treatment of women is appalling. many afghans are horrified by them and don't want that, and anything that we can do to try to support more positive elements in afghan society, we should do. but we cannot try to write a blank check. if we go for sort of all-or- nothing approach, i think we're

going to end up abandoning the country in five years time, being less kind than we would the other way. so, distinguish taliban from al qaeda. the taliban, broadly speaking, are afghans-- farmers, subsistence farmers. as i say, most of those people can't find the united states on the map. al qaeda, traditionally, are much more educated, middle-class people, often from egypt, from saudi arabia, north africa. people who have masters degrees, who've lived in hamburg, who learned to fly airplanes. we can't confuse those two. there's no point us getting into a fight with six million afghans when our real target is probably a few hundred terrorists who have the capacity to harm the united states. our real issue is not who wants to harm the united states. our real issue is who can. and how do we prevent those people who actually have that ability to do that. >> sherr: and with 10 or 20,000 troops, do you believe that the allies can get rid of al qaeda?

>> i'm not a military expert, but i would like to ask the military that question. i'd like to go to them and say, "listen, you're not going to be able to have 600,000 troops. you're not going to be able to stay for 40 years. so, let's just turn this around. let's say you've only got 10,000, you've only got 20,000, but we can maintain it for 20 or 30 years. what would you be able to do?" and my guess is, they'd come back and say, "okay, with that, we can probably make sure that osama bin laden never again sets up a major training camp in afghanistan. >> sherr: let me 2ead to you something that former secretary of state condoleezza rice was quoted as saying the other day: "if you want another terrorist attack in the u.s., abandon afghanistan." >> i would say that secretary rice is exaggerating the situation. pakistan is much more of a threat than afghanistan to u.s. national security. al qaeda is in pakistan, not in afghanistan. pakistan, of course, has a nuclear weapon. pakistan's a much larger country. it could destabilize india. afghanistan is, of course, a poor, fragile state. like somalia, like yemen, like

many other countries in the world. of course, we should be doing things to try to stabilize it. but that is-- and i want to disagree respectfully with her-- not the place where the next attack is most likely to come from. >> sherr: let's talk about the politics of this a little bit. you've met with secretary clinton? >> sure. >> sherr: you've met with special envoy richard holbrooke? >> sure. >> sherr: what do you tell them? >> again, my message is: focus on what we can do. we don't have a moral obligation to do what we can't. people can get very fixed by saying, "but surely you're not saying we ought to do nothing? surely you're not saying we ought to allow the taliban to do this or that?" and i just keep saying "ought" implies "can"-- you don't have a moral obligation to do what you can't do. >> sherr: how is your advice taken? >> i think what i see at the moment is that people are polite, because they imagine maybe i have some experience with afghanistan. but i'm one of a broad community of people- we have nine people working in my center at harvard who've worked there for 20 or 30 years and the problem we all have is that if the

administration has for some reason already decided that they're going to increase troops, they're going to do a counterinsurgency campaign, it's very difficult for them to take on board people coming back and saying, "look, actually, i don't think this is going to work. it's a great idea. i can see why you want to do it. but by trying to do the impossible, you may end up doing nothing. i'd like to present an alternative strategy, which is lighter, more intelligent, and may end up actually achieving something." >> sherr: and again, their reaction? they listen politely, you say? >> they listen politely, but in the end, of course, basically the policy decision is made. what they would like is little advice on some small bit. i mean, the analogy that one of my colleagues used recently is this: it's as though they come to you and they say, "we're planning to drive our car off a cliff. do we wear a seatbelt or not?" and we say, "don't drive your car off the cliff." and they say, "no, no, no. that decision's already made. the question is should we wear our seatbelts?" and you say, "why by all means wear a seatbelt." and they say, "okay, we

consulted with policy expert, rory stewart," et cetera. >> sherr: does the west, do the nato allies, do they simply not understand afghanistan? >> i think they understand the country, but they have a much more basic problem, which is that they believe failure is not an option. there's no alternative. and once you get into that mindset, everything follows from that. >> sherr: you also suggest that if you add more troops, that will create a backlash that will somehow ultimately cause us to abandon afghanistan. how does that syllogism work? >> that basically works because american voters, american taxpayers are not going to put up with this. you can already see public support going against this. you can see congress and senate increasingly skeptical. i think it's very irresponsible- if you care about afghanistan- to increase troops much more. because i can see us going from engagement to isolation, from troop increases to total withdrawal. the path the president has started us on, i would predict, would mean that in five, six

years time, everybody will simply get fed up with afghanistan and abandon it entirely. >> sherr: and, in fact, we're seeing that in the polls right now. the latest abc news/washington post poll-- 51% of adults say the war is not worth fighting. >> right. this is the very worse thing for a country like afghanistan. this was the "charlie wilson war" effect. we go in there, we give it a billion dollars this year; we give it zero the next year. it's sort of boom to bust. what we actually should have done is capped our troop levels at quite a modest number- 20,000, 30,000- which is what we had in 2004, 2005, and tried to stay with the long, difficult game of protecting the united states and helping afghans. >> sherr: do you th)nk that our l%aders are just ,oo far removed from the people to understand? >> i definitely believe... i obviously teach at the moment in a school where a lot of young people are trying to go into these kinds of jobs, and i do believe that it is so important to spend a year or two living in a rural community, because the experience of that totally changes your view of what's possible.

and that relates also to my work in afghanistan over the last three and a half years, where i've been trying to run a nonprofit. where the lessons day by day, both on what can be done, but almost as importantly, what cannot be done, are rammed home minute by minute, in trying to do quite simple tasks. >> sherr: your nonprofit has a truly wonderful name-- turquoise mountain. describe what you're trying to do there. >> so, we've gone in, we're restoring the center of the old city of kabul. we're trying to provide incomes to afghan women and men. we train people in woodwork, calligraphy, ceramics, jewelry. there are great gemstones in afghanistan. we also work to simply restore that part of the city. we bring in water supply, sewerage. we have an elementary school. we have a clinic. we've restored about 65 buildings, got about 500 employees. it's probably the most satisfying thing i've done in my life. >> sherr: and how does it fit into the larger picture of what we are trying to do in afghanistan? >> well, i think, firstly it teaches me that it's all about

afghan leadership. the best bits of our project work because the afghans have asked for it. they came to me and they said, "we'd like an elementary school." and i said, "that's not in my strategic plan. i don't want to do an elementary school." and they said, "well, you better build an elementary school." and it's turned out to be the best bit about it. 165 children turned up within about an hour, and it just makes me very happy seeing it. on the other hand, it's also taught me the kind of scale of challenges you're facing. we arrived and the garbage, the trash was seven feet deep in the streets. people were climbing over their courtyard walls, because they couldn't get through their doors. we had to clear 17,000 trucks of garbage. and this is only two years ago, 200 meters from the presidential palace in the center of kabul. so, just to get a sense of what very... there's no sewage system in the capital city, which has got nearly four million people. when you take that on board, the idea that you're somehow going to be able, overnight, to create legitimate, effective, stable state structures, and the writ of the government will run into every ruined village, and that the taliban will be defeated

once and for all, and we're just going to be able to go home in three years time, mission accomplished- is missing the point. this is like talking to somebody, maybe, i don't want to push this analogy too far, but somebody who works in another poor country, like working in sub-saharan africa or working in nepal, it's a long, painful process where even delivering water supply turns out to take a lot of ingenuity and two years of negotiation. >> sherr: from all of your travels in afghanistan, particularly the work with your charity, what do you think the afghan people would like us to do? >> i believe the afghan people are divided. this is a very atomized country. there are certainly some people in the taliban areas in the south and the east who are fighting with the taliban, and who are very skeptical about foreign presence and perceive us as an occupation. in the center and the north of the country, there are many people who see the united states as their saviors, who see us as their best defense against the taliban. there are many afghan women, of course, who are very, very grateful for the opportunities they now have, and they're

looking on us to protect them against, particularly, extremists and those who they think would suppress those rights. but most of all, afghans i think day to day are not actually obsessed with the taliban. what they're obsessed with is normal security. by which they mean crime, looting, kidnapping, gangsterism. most of my colleagues in afghanistan would be scared to get in a car to go down to kandahar, not because of the taliban, but because of the criminal gangs. they're horrified by their police, which is perceived as very predatory, very corrupt. they're very skeptical about their government. they're impatient with how s,owly the aid development has come. there's a lot of inflation. they find it difficult to pay their rent. so... >> sherr: they're just trying to get by, is what you're saying? >> right. and just to turn it around, i mean, one way of putting it, i don't know whether this is helpful-- but if you're an afghan villager, you sit in your village, maybe in southern afghanistan, and one day the taliban turn up. and you probably don't like them very much, because they're

young, fanatical men, banging on about religion. but you might give them a cup of tea, they go away. next day, maybe some canadian soldiers turn up. maybe they search your house. that makes you a little bit uncomfortable, but you give them a cup of tea, they go away. the next day, the afghan police turn up. they may not be wearing uniforms, they're waving guns around, they may be rude to your daughter. you give them a cup of tea, they go away. basically, you want these people, by and large, to go away. most afghan villagers are finding themselves trapped in a very, very unpleasant battle between forces that they barely understand. and the afghan government needs to take the initiative. the afghan government needs to convince these people that they have a long term future in working with the government in kabul. kabul. troops can do. >> sherr: rory, you're on your way to afghanistan this week. will you be trying to change anybody's mind, when you go over there? >> i try all the time. and i think maybe one way of looking at it is to say, "look, maybe i can't change your mind today.

but let's at least sketch out an alternative strategy." what i would say is, a strategy which is more modest, a strategy which tries to think very, very clearly about what we're going to achieve over the long term and how to resource it. unless you understand what a frankly low base that country's starting from- a country where 60% of civil servants don't have a high school education, where maybe 40% of the population can't read and write, where maybe a quarter of teachers are illiterate. unless you get that, you don't get why you can't build that amazing thing that you're trying to build. and people keep coming back and saying, "oh, all you're saying is we need to be realistic in our expectations." and my response is, "yeah, but you don't quite get how realistic i mean. i don't just mean drop it from jeffersonian democracy to vaguely stable state. i mean, even that vaguely stable state is a pretty distant dream. that you can't... >> sherr: you're saying these people need water. th ne%d the simplest ,hings before they can even think about

the larger issue? >> right. absolutely. and that you can invest 20-30 years in afghanistan. and if you were lucky, you would make it look a bit like pakistan. i mean, unless you understand that pakistan is 20-30ears ahead of afghanistan, you don't understand where we're starting from. and pakistan is still not an ideal state. but the pakistan army, the police, the civil service, the financial administration, the education are whole decades ahead of the afghan. so, our whole model is broken from the beginning. because you could put all this investment in, you would make afghanistan look a bit more like pakistan, but that wouldn't achieve whatever your national security objectives seem to be. >> sherr: so, to sum up, president obama has his big decision, and your advice is? >> my advice to president obama is, you're going to have to increase troops now. it's too late for you, because you're going to be destroyed politically if you oppose your general on the ground on something like this. but let's think now six months, a year down the line. we're going to have to decrease again. we can't keep these numbers indefinitely.

cap it. don't go up any further. that's it. if the military come back in six months and say, "by the way, we'd like ano,her 50,000, another 60,000." no. say, "this is all you're going to get. and furthermore, this is all you're going to get, and the numbers are going to decrease." force the military to work out what they're going to do with less. this isn't an ideological point. it's just a fact. they're going to have less in two years, three years, five years than they have today. so, let's try to frame the policy that works out what we can do to protect the united states and help the afghan people with fewer troops. and hopefully, that'll mean we can have a long-term sustainable relationship, instead of this boom and bust, in and out, that i feaá is coming. >> sherr: rory stewart, thank you very much for your insights into afghanistan. >> thank you very much.

sherrthe annual /pening of sherrthe annual /pening of assembly herin new yorthis week has generated the usual blend of diplomatic activity and traffic jams, as well as an ever-increasing number of conferences and summits held around it. the biggest and best-known has become the yearly meeting of the clinton global initiative, former president bill clinton's effort to get the public and private sectors working together on such worldwide issues as poverty, disease and hunger, now with a special focus. >> according to the united nations, women do 66%, two thirds of the world's work, produce 50% of the world's food-- a factor which would stun people in this country given the way agriculture is organized-- earn 10% of the world's income and own one percent of the world's property. >> sherr: president obama picked up the theme when he spoke to clinton's group. >> i first saw it in my mother.

she was an anthropologist who dedicated her life to understanding and improving the lives of the rural poor, from indonesia to pakistan. whether working with u.s.a.i.d. or the asian development bank, the ford foundation, bank rakyat in jakarta or women's world banking here in new york, she championed the cause of women's welfare and helped pioneer the micro-loans that have helped lift millions from poverty. >> sherr: what we've heard all over town this week is that increasingly, government and philanthropy are being joined in the effort by big business. among those who've been leading the way is my next guest. kavita ramdas is the president and chief executive officer of the global fund for women, the largest grant-making foundation focused exclusively on women's rights issues. the fund has given more than $71 million to thousands of organizations in 167 countries. kavita ramdas was born in new

delhi, then educated in india and the united states, where she is now a citizen. she describes herself as a "social venture capitalist." welcome to the journal. >> thank you. it's very n%ce to be here. >> sherr: let me start with what's going on in new york this week and around the world, which is all this focus on girls and women. why now? why girls and women? >> i think there is a growing sense that with the challenges that are facing us on climate change, on growing militarization of societies, on the security front, you simply can't address this with a sort of a business as usual strategy. and i think women and girls have moved from a place of sort of being, "there, there, dear, that's nice." on the side. to really being seen as an engine for change in other critical world areas of making a difference and making an impact in the world.

and that's why i think this is our moment. >> sherr: just tick off for me, if you would, what you think the if you would, what you think the women around the world are facing right now. >> so, i think ongoing war and militarization is a huge challenge for women. the ongoing violence against women, which sort of, you know, comes out of this culture of violence. and the fact that essentially violence against women continues to be condoned on some level. that is, completely un-understandable for so many of us. why is it that you have statistics like a woman being raped every six minutes? in this country, in the united states. >> sherr: proving that this is not just a problem in developing countries. >> absolutely. >> sherr: we've got our own issues here. >> no, violence against women cuts across class, it cuts across race, it cuts across income levels, and it cuts across different civilizations and cultures. and it is an area in which we could make a global compact to make a difference. i mean, i think that's the

advantage is that we have this chance to make a difference. i think the issues of poverty. i mean, you cannot meet a woman anywhere in the world and not be faced, again, with the fact that women are 70% of those who are the poorest in the world. and that's true, by the way, in the united states, again. women are the majority of who's poor in this country, along with their dependent children. so, i think we're going to have to make some real investments around how we see... if we want to have these open, tolerant, stable, democratic societies. and that's the vision of the world that we have ahead of us. >> sherr: i just had a conversation with rory stewart about afghanistan. and we talked about the challenges there. you have said in the past, and i want to quote. "that highly militarized societies in almost every instance lead to bad results for women. the security of women has not improved and in many instances it actually becomes worse." are you seeing examples of this in afghanistan? >> absolutely.

i think there is no question about the fact that when you flood a country with weapons, either small arms weapons, or just simply the presence of large numbers of primarily male troops. the multiple ways in which women's safety is compromised just increases dramatically. and i say that both because the presence of foreign troops provides a wonderful and convenient excuse for local militias. the taliban. everybody who claims that they're doing this to resist the foreign invader. and hence the bombings, hence the suicides, hence the rapes of women, because it is to teach them a lesson. on the other side, the extraordinary poverty of afghanistan, which continues unabated. when i was last in kabul, which is almost five years ago, the stories i heard from woman after woman after woman, saying, "young girls are coming down from villages where there are

drought conditions. and sleeping with foreign soldiers for a loaf of bread." i mean, this is what we call survival sex. and i think, to think that you can have 150,000 troops in any place and not have women's bodies literally on the line-- everything in our experience has taught us otherwise. the women in korea, who service american servicemen. the women in japan, in okinawa. the experiences with rape and the experiences with sexual violence of different forms. in the congo, one of our activist colleagues said, similarly, it's different with a knife. you can maybe rape one woman. with machine guns, you can take out a whole village. i think what is profoundly different, lynn, is the scale that we're talking about. that you can have literally tens of thousands of women and girls be in positions of such, you know fragile vulnerability in

terms of their bodies literally being on the line. >> sherr: it is also said that in modern conflicts, 90% of the casualties now are civilian. a number i heard the other day, 75% of them... >> of them. >> sherr: ...are women and children. >> women and children. yep. yep. >> sherr: so, women and children are the first victims really of these situations. >> absolutely. and i think not only that, because, you know, to be... to die in an attack or in violence is one thing. to be maimed, to be injured, to be forced to leave your home. women are 80% of the world's refugees. and i think those circumstances then put a whole other set of trials on women and the children who they are responsible for. >> sherr: the human side of the story is agonizing, as you've just been describing. but i want to take it to a slightly larger picture, and ask, do you see a connection between your work on women's issues and our national security? >> oh, absolutely. and, lynn, i would say that i

just have simply stopped using that term "women's issues." i really don't know what that is. what issues should 51% of the world check out on? do we not care about peace and security? do we not care about health and education? do we not care... i think what we are talking about is the right of every human being, including the 51% that hasn't had much voice for the past millennia, to be at the table to make decisions about the changes that we want to see in the world. and in that sense, i think women have everything to do with national security and safety and, you know, a future in which we really are all more secure. >> sherr: this is precisely the point that has just been made by melanne verveer. she's the ambassador-at-large for global women's issues in the state department. appointed by the obama administration and hillary clinton, the secretary of state. let's listen to what melanne verveer said, this week, at the clinton global initiative.

>> one of the problems has been that we look at women's issues as women's issues. soft, nice, check the box on the side. we have got tontegrate these issues in everything we do. we've got a major food security initiative that the united states is putting forward. women are going to be a pillar of that initiative, because the great majority of the small holder farmers, 60% to 80% in sub-saharan africa and asia, are women. >> sherr: so, women want a place at the table, a seat at the table, national issues. how is that going to change things, do you think? >> in country after country, whether it's the women of colombia, working to deawith the incredible displacement that has been caused by the militias both from the rebels, as well as government militias. whether it is something like jerusalem link, which, you know, even through the toughest times of israeli, palestinian, sort of break down in negotiations, you

have, you know, israeli jewish women and palestinian activists on the other side, talking to each other. trying to keep links of communication alive. you know, demystifying this notion that the other is something horrible, something un-humane, something different. and i think the international women's commission that the israeli and palestinian women formed together is an example of why women's voices need to be at the table. and i think the opportunity here, with the u.n. looking at things like 1325, the resolution to havwomen involved with peacekeeping forces-- and other such efforts-- is really to be able to say, it isn't just looking at women as victims of war and violence. it's also that women have really creative ideas about how to change the terms of reference. and how to get ourselves... extricate ourselves out of wars that we're already in. and to prevent wars from happening.

>> sherr: let's talk about something that is affecting the entire world right now, which is the economy. we are in a global economic crisis. women and children seem to be hit by this harder than anybody. >> and not surprisingly. i suppose, given that they are at the bottom of the economic pyramid, and that they are often the first to be fired and the last to be hired. but also more importantly, in part, because they bear the burdens. study after study has shown that steep increases in male unemployment strongly correlated with spikes in domestic violence. when men are out of work, dispirited, don't have options, are drinking more, the only place where they can express their frustrations is often on again, women's bodies. so, you don't only see women paying the price in terms of a direct economic price, which they are also experiencing. but you also see women paying a much higher price in terms of increases in domestic violence.

the one thing i do want to say, though, is that in sort of this doom and gloom scenario, it is important to point out that women are also holding solutions to these problems. >> sherr: and that brings up where we are now, i think, in all of this, which is the sudden interest of business in investing in women, investing in women and children, investing in programs that will make a difference. what do you think suddenly has brought business to this issue? >> well, you know, last year i was here in new york. we were celebrating the 20th anniversary of the global fund for women and honoring a long-time corporate partner of j.p. morgan. it's not as well-known as the 10,000 women initiative of goldman, but certainly it's been... >> sherr: goldman sachs' program, to get business degrees for 10,000 women... >> for 10,000 women across the world. >> sherr: right. >> and i think what's interesting is business leaders are beginning to recognize that

the ability to truly be invested in the full resources, the full human capital resources, if you will, of a society, means that they must understand and must engage with women, not just in terms of their philanthropy. and this is what i found so interesting at j.p. morgan. j.p. morgan has had a whole program around a women's leadership process within the company. increasing the numbers of women in leadership positions. and a recent study mentioned that banks that had 30% or more of women in senior leadership actually had much lower risk rates and had a much lower rate of having any of the kinds of bad loans that were made in other banks. i find that very interesting. >> sherr: and the suggestion is that women are somehow good business. i want to now listen to the goldman sachs chairman and c.e.o., lloyd blankfein...

>> blankfein. >> sherr: ...this week at the clinton global initiative, had a very interesting comment about what they're doing. let's take a listen. >> we have to do whatever it takes to attract and retain the best people. and oddly enough, this is a recruiting tool for our firm. we... and by the way, it's a retention tool for the firm. if you want to know where goldman sachs loses our people to in the middle of their career, frankly, it's public service. we have to go out and convince them that you can accomplish a lot of your personal objectives. and the world and societies objectives, through the platform of goldman sachs. >> sherr: is it for the sake of the women and the children? or is it for the sake of doing better business at the firm? >> i think it's both, actually. i mean, i think there is... sometimes i think we have this feeling that there is, you know, this real tradeoff between sort of, equity and efficiency, if you will. you know, and my colleague, geeta rao gupta at the

international center for research on women would say, the thing is that if you invest in equity, you actually get more efficient outcomes. and so, while maybe there are sort of baser, you know, self-preservation instincts. and business is about the bottom line. and maybe this is b%ing drinen by the bottom line. i think we actually as women's rights advocates and as feminists, we shouldn't care. on some level, we should be glad that there are people who are coming to the table. it doesn't mean you don't keep pointing out that women are not just a means to an end. to think that 50% off the world's population or actually maybe larger, 51% of the world's population, are not worth investing in because of their core humanity is obviously something that didn't need a business argument. >> sherr: give me then the business argument. what is the return on investment for women?

>> well, i think the business argument is you, one, from the corporate perspective, you retain these people who are sort of feeling like, "what am i doing manufacturing widgets or selling bonds or, you know, am i doing anything to really change the world?" giving them that sense of purpose, you know, indra nooyi of pepsico speaks often of this sense of purpose. so, you give them that sense of purpose. but also, i think it's about looking forward to a world in which we're going to have a different bottom line. and i think in that, women and girls to me is not unlike the environmental push, right? because you're thinking about... al gore referred to this. he said, you know, you have to build in the cost of carbon to your business. and i think there's something about building in the costs of neglecting or failing to include half of the world that businesses are beginning to suddenly take a look, you know, stepping back and saying, "wow, what happens in a world where women are going to be making more decisions? where more girls are educated?"

because i don't think... >> sherr: and the answer is? >> and the answer is, i think, we need to have them be interested in what we do. and we need to have them be buying our products. and we need to have them-- the other thing is i think on strategies, i think more and more in business strategy, you look at all of the-- i look at management suggestions. it looks like sort of the stuff most women know instinctively. >> sherr: by running households. >> by running households. and by managing budgets in very, very tight ways. they're excellent at figuring out how to do that. >> sherr: right. is there in fact a bottom line on this? can these corporations make money by investing in women and women's issues? >> i think they absolutely make money by investing in women, in their own firms, for example. and i think... >> sherr: in terms of productivity? >> in terms of productivity. in terms of more flexible, more creative work environments. i think it's interesting, i went from a meeting at google this

week in new york, to a meeting at j.p. morgan chase. and although google is full of, you know, a lot of male engineers, it actually has the kind of flexibility and the sort of space and the environment, which you begin to think of as being kind of a more feminine environment, a more flexible, moveable environment. and i think the companies of the future are not going to be these gargantuan companies, where, you know, you can only do business in a certain way. they have to be nimble. they have to be able to change. they have to be able to have people working part time and then coming back into the workforce. so, i think the opportunity to invest in women and the way in which women can offer them a different way of organizing their business, is really an opportunity that businesses would be, i think missing the boat if they didn't jump on it right now. >> sherr: well, let me ask you. you run a fund that has a lot of

money. and gives a lot of money away, investments. give me your pitch. how do you get someone to invest in the global fund for women? to invest in one of your projects? >> so, here's my theory of change. women are an incredibly under- utilized asset and resource. to have successful societies, you need independent, civil societies, not just good business and good governance. so that independent citizens can hold their governments accountable. and philanthropy, good social change philanthropy can be a ripple of change that spreads out, catalyzing women's voices on all issues of importance in their society. >> sherr: will i make money out of it? >> no, you won't make money right away. but you will have a society in which you will be much more able to make money, because it will be stable, peaceful, and you'll have an educated and willing workforce. >> sherr: give me some specifics about how investing in women and children )s actually making a difference.

>> one, in afghanistan. an early investment that the global fund for women made, $10,000 in the afghan institute for learning. today the afghan institute for learning, which was then running underground schools inside taliban-led afghanistan is reaching 350,000 women, girls and boys, across the country. running human rights workshops for women in afghanistan. and running some of the best maternal health clinics that are around. another example, cambodia. about eight years ago, we made a grant to a young, determined woman, doing an anti-trafficking program in cambodia. soon after that, she used her experience as a community organizer in that area to run for and be elected. she was minister of women's affairs in cambodian government. her name is mu sochua. she now heads an opposition party. >> sherr: let me get to a little bit of the bad news. you have said that there is, in fact, a backlash from some of

these programs from some of the push that's being given to women and children around the world. give me some examples. >> i think no change comes without resistance from those who've had the power before. and i think although it would be nice to say that, as i think the case that we're trying to make is as women's advocates, that this change is good for all of us. it doesn't necessarily feel that way in many, many different parts of the world. and so, i do think this is a time of incredible turbulence. developing societies are trying to do what the west did in 500 years, we're doing in 60. and i think that sets up some real pressures against which women... in which women become sort of the fulcrum. and i think that there's a reason why women's rights have become the point of losing connection between both conservatives here in this

country and progressives. i mean, i think... >> sherr: are there some specific examples where... >> absolutely. in a place like india, where the growing pressure to sort of be part of this succeeding middle class has come side by side with an increase in dowry deaths, or these bride burnings as they are called. not what you would imagine. similarly a steep increase in female feticide. using ultrasounds to be able to determine whether the fetus in utero is a girl or a boy, and then selectively aborting girls. >> sherr: because? >> because of sons being seen as being more valuable. as sons being seen-- so, i think there is certainly-- as cultures in which traditional roles of men and women are being challenged. and women are playing more and more of a different role. i think the acid throwing in afghanistan is an example of backlash.

girls who want to go to school, determined to go to school, parents who are committed to sending their daughters to school. and then, you know, having acid being thrown in your face, because somehow your going to school is a slap in the face of tradition. >> sherr: sum it up for me. where we are right now. are we at a critical mass? is this the time? is it going to make a difference, finally? >> yes, it is. i think this is... i think the 21st century is our century. and i think women are not just waiting to be filled up with resources, but they're ready to put their resources on the table. to be able to lead towards a different world. >> sherr: kavita ramdas, thank you so much. >> thank you. it's been a pleasure.

>> sherr: this isn't the first time as a reporteá that i've covered what's been lab%led, the year of the woman. make that, years of the women. 1984, geraldine ferraro becomes the first woman to run as vice- president on a major party ticket. >> by choosing a woman to run for our nation's second highest office, you send a powerful signal to all americans: there are no doors we cannot unlock... if we can do this, we can do anything. >> sherr: 1992, women help sweep bill clinton into the white house, and the senate boasts a record six female members. 2008, one woman runs for president; another for vice

president. actually, no one called that the year of the woman. the united nations expanded the concept to the international women's year, then requested more time with the decade for women and a series of global conferences-- 1975 mexico city, 1985 nairobi, 1995 beijing. >> if there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all. >> sherr: each of those events laid the groundwork for the new momentum. but after all those so-called years of the woman, i'm just the teensiest bit wary about seeing today's moment in time as the final one. still, i'm full of hope, because the concept is correct-- empowering women may be our only chance. and the tactics have changed.

the mantra today is not "giving" but "investing." a recognition that investing in women and their families is not only right, but will reap profits for everyone. we just heard that this 21st century is our time. century of women. not bad. let's hope it takes less than the whole one hundred years. we can't wait that long. that's it for this week. the journal continues online on our website at pbs.org. click on "bill moyers journal" for more information on the state of women's rights around the world. you can also learn more about rory stewart and his experiences in afghanistan. and you can still see bill moyers' web exclusive essay on dick armey and the recent anti- health care protest in washington. that's all at pbs.org. bill will be back on the next edition of the journal. i'm lynn sherr.

captioning sponsored by public affairs television captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org my daughter mary

back with us on this series. thanks, mom. today we're making baby quilts. we feel like every baby needs a quilt. a friend of mine recently had a baby,