i was teaching at beirut university as barbara mentioned. i was asked to do some research and i responded i can't do any research on soviet-middle east policy. see if you have any literature and see if you can make some of the contradiction and i realized many knew none of the history of the politics, culture or anything else of the middle east. they knew no mideastern language than i do. and i never claimed i knew russian but because of the generosity of our government in translating a huge volume of materials from the russian current digest of the soviet press and an english-speaker like myself had access to pretty much everything that was published in russia. all the public stuff was there. and i was sitting in beirut and i had access to a lot of the middle eastern materials so i started working on this topic and as i started working on it i realized most of the things that were written are not written by people who didn't know much about the middle east and most of the stuff was written from a perspective which privileged either moscow o

he went on to work with the likes of cronkite and rather, win emmys, and cover war zones in beirut and. he married meredith vieira and they have 3 children. richard told the story of his battle with ms and later colon cancer in his tough-minded memoir, "blindsided." he is now at work on a new book, "strong at the broken places." richard cohen, it's good to see you again. you know, i was terribly moved and inspired by "blindsided." what parallels do you draw between the struggles that you had dealing with ms and the struggles that older people go through? well, there's one very important parallel that i think is relevant to everything that we're doing on this program, which is that 90 million americans suffer from chronic illnesses, but chronic illnesses are tied to aging. seventy percent of people who are over 65 suffer from at least one chronic illness, as many as 50% have 2 chronic illnesses, so there's a real welcome to your future quality to this issue. you know, we live in a culture that doesn't want to see illness. we celebrate beauty. popular culture is all about physical perfec

in beirut, thanks.pw next news break, bottom of the t'r?ies with oliver north"q ÷y american infantryman can't be pushed, they have to be led from tzu front. this statue called follow me úwú/es tzu spirit of the the perilous business of war on the ground. on the gr north, this is war stories. coming to you from fort coming t georgia, home of the u.s. army infantry since 1918. during the 1960's and 70's, hundreds of thousands of young@@ soldiers honed their combat skills here. but american involvement in southeast asia began years before our first air and ground combat units arrived in 1965. early in the cold war against communists, the eisenhower administration spent billions fight against ho chi minh. supported himho chi minh. when he was our ally against the japanlá Ñ in world war ii. how did the united states find itself embroiled in vietnam fighting war that would last more than a decades and cost more than 58,000 american lives and sear our national soul. tonight, flash point vietnam, the road to war. that's next on war stories. >> they

one of the places not far from here, it was a dive bar called downtown beirut two. two because apparently they were franchising the hell holes around the city. and you basically have the comeback lines for drunk heckers and i got good where my drunk job started spilling over in my day job. i had one lawyer said i could have drafted a better document in my sleep and i got into antiheckle mode and i said well, yeah, i could have been a your father but the dog beat me over the fence. >> exit stage left. >> how much do you get paid for joke when you were writing for leno. >> it was $50 a joke. >> that ain't bad. >> he was very cool. i mean i went up to him after a private function and he took the jokes. he called me when was going to do the jokes. he was very cool about it. >> 50 bucks. you have to write a lot of jokes to make money. haiheroin addict. >> ten jokes a day. >> your show is about sports. >> it is like sports huge part of our culture, you know. and, you know, nobody is really satirizing is so i thought why not take a swing at it. >> greg: a baseball metaphor

yes, it cam from beirut. and then i had to find a collorative translator to work with, and i s working on other books. itas a complicated process, and all all, 10 years wk hd memoir, but reall almost 20 from th discovery of this lost book, this great lost memoir. >> rose: it isany stories. it is the story of h he did it. just the journey of ts man. it's also a documentatio of an event in histo. and it's als the political story of the denial. >> aolutely. ... very mucthis book brings together these layers. i think there's no doubtin the minds of scholars of ts history at this is the most comprehensive and complex memoir of th armenian genocide. firsit hassome panorama. it gips in berlin on the eve of the world wa i. d he's observinghe outeak of the war with very fine eye as an ouider, and he's contextuizing the armenian genocide through setting up the war. then we movecross europe to constantinople and follow him on the night of his aest of april 24, 1915, along with the oer 25 armanan culturaleaders, and en y

xe's corporate structure designed beirut wing evangelical christian founder eric chris, to create a vast range of crimes, creating multiple company, basing offshore, changing names all the way from a to z. there is an accusation included of child prostitution. first murder. former marine, i personally observed multiple incidents of blackwater using unnecessary, excessive deadly force. the driver not heading directly towards us. blackwater almost immediately began firing. outside baghdad, blackwater fired without cause repeatedly at a car. outside forward operating base war horse. blackwater opened fire with the illegal weapon on a vehicle near the gate for no reason. another shooter who had no reason for firing was bragging and gloating about his kill. from a former executive sworn declaration, "mr. prince intentionally deployed to iraq certain men who shared his vision of christian supremacy. knowing and wanting these men to take every opportunity to murder iraqis. prince knew the men being deployed were not suitable candidates for carrying legal weaponry but did not care because deploy

drafting and signing joint statements, coming together at conferences on reform in alexandria or beirutcoming together to confront their governments at regional meetings like the forum for the future. so where as 10 years, feminist were entirely isolated in their feelings and in their struggles, and indeed that sense of isolation comes through so strongly in josh's narrative of her life. today, aspiring women politicians in kuwait, in saudi arabia, in oman, and the united emirates, had his lightspeed network of a mobile phone calls, e-mails, text messages, they are constantly in touch with one another relating anecdotes, incidents, bucking each other up when the chips are down. so it seems to me that there is something fundamental that has changed with respect to the position of liberals in the middle east today. and finally, these liberal reading lights are being followed as josh points out in his book by a rising generation of mobile lies and increasingly vocal, young liberal activists. so in some manner, these liberals have indeed become role models and they are being emulated. i thi

you look at the beirut bombings back in 1984 of the military base.ook at what was thankfully thwarted at fort dix in new jersey. are we doing enough to protect our military bases from these kind of attacks? >> i tell you that australia is in a much worse place than the united states is to protect its bases. in the u.s., you will have a mix of contractors and also military men defending the bases, they are all armed. in australia's case, you have unarmed civilians who are guarding the bases. these unarmed civilians if they were attacked by the plotters in this case, they would have been killed. they wouldn't have stood a chance. there is a discussion now within australia as to whether they should change the situation and actually have armed members of the military guarding the bases. when you are trying to guard against terrorism, which is the scourge that could strike anywhere, you need to be on the lookout for things like this and adapt a terrorist plot. it's a no-brainer that if you have guards at military bases, they should be in the military, the

i first met our speaker in 2001 when i was reporting for npr out of beirut and i would go to egypt toget the egyptian reaction to the second intifada. my editor told me that abdel moneim said was a must interview. much to my pleasure i discovered not only was he a great interviewer but gives great sound bites, which is thirty-second of great content, which is a wonderful treat for radio journalist. but he is more than a great sound bite maker, he is also a great egyptian, intellectual, thinker and writer who has written extensively on the mideast peace process as well as the politics and economics of the region. he is currently chairman of the board of al-ahram newspaper which he just joined a month ago. prior to that, he was director of the al-ahram center for political and strategic studies, egypt's main think-tank and held that position for quite a few years. he is the founder of the international alliance for arab-israeli peace and the egyptian peace movement and has been a senior research fellow at harvard university and a visiting fellow at the brookings -- fidgeting -- among ma

after leaving the army i went to graduate school at the american university in beirut and lived in theiddle east for several years learning arabic which is not spoken in afghanistan, but just spent a lot of time in the arabic-speaking world and middle east. i developed an interest in counter insurgency warfare largely to make sense of what we were doing back in 2002-2004. i think became interested by been really bad at that. on the ground we believed that by pursuing the decapitation strategy, especially in iraq against former regime leaders, we would be about to end the cycle of violence. while that is an important part of any counterinsurgency strategy, if you think that just by decapitation you will have an effect on violence, you are mistaken. we realized this and need to protect the people, to create a secure space for political activity to take place. for institutions to grow. this is as true and afghanistan as it was in iraq. host: let's take some calls for our guest, andrew exum. he is a former soldier in both countries. good morning, california. caller-- from georgia. caller:

been wired so if a campus is closed or sick student can't get to class, the classroom can be drought beirut online educational programs like blackboard. college kids can keep up with their classes. >> in general, if you lock logged in, you would see the lecture notes. you would see any discussion forums going on about that lecture. you would see your assignments. you could take online test. >> centers for disease control recently added 19 to 24-year-olds to the first priority group for the h1n1 vaccine. with the vaccine not expected to be available until late october, students feel safe knowing if their campus is shut down they could still log on. >> i would actually be more relieved and comforting to know that drexel has a system set up for this because with the 10-week quarters if you miss a day of class, you are really far behind. >> that would be pretty awesome. i would head down to sure -- shore and do all classes online. still like a vacation while still doing work. >> the key is not the online aspect it's the distance learning aspect. if your school doesn't have this internet capabil

on a rake and, i was with the marines -- on ronald reagan, i was with the marines in beirut 1240 of themkilled by iran, hezbollah. i filled those kids the night before because they're not going come to christmas so that they could say something to their moms and dads. i could see their faces right now. i am well aware that ronald reagan himself pulled out of lebanon. i remember the ice and our guns. i also remember the fact that he was c-span.org. -- i remember the eisenhower guns. you are right about some of your facts, but the book is not about them. host: republican line. caller: this big of brzezinski, president carter's -- zbigniew brzezinski, president carter's national security adviser, thought that he could prevent the soviet empire from expanding into afghanistan and so on but they thought it was best to remove the shah from power and have an islamist that would obviously be against an atheist type of government. they had this idea and it went forward with it. today, most of the problems that western nations are facing in the middle east and afghanistan is as a result of jimmy c

after leaving the army i went to graduate school at the american university in beirut and lived in thedle east for several years learning arabic which is not spoken in afghanistan, but just spent a lot of time in the arabic-speaking world and middle east. i developed an interest in counter insurgency warfare largely to make sense of what we were doing back in 2002-2004. i think became interested by been really bad at that. on the ground we believed that by pursuing the decapitation strategy, especially in iraq against former regime leaders, we would be about to end the cycle of violence. while that is an important part of any counterinsurgency strategy, if you think that just by decapitation you will have an effect on violence, you are mistaken. we realized this and need to protect the people, to create a secure space for political activity to take place. for institutions to grow. this is as true and afghanistan as it was in iraq. host: let's take some calls for our guest, andrew exum. he is a former soldier in both countries. good morning, california. caller-- from georgia. caller: ye

on a rake and, i was with the marines -- on ronald reagan, i was with the marines in beirut 1240 of them were killed by iran, hezbollah. i filled those kids the night before because they're not going come to christmas so that they could say something to their moms and dads. i could see their faces right now. i am well aware that ronald reagan himself pulled@@@@mha you are right about your facts on reagan and some of the other presidents, but the book is not about them. host: minnesota, good morning on our republican line. caller: a couple of things i want to mention. president carter prosy national security adviser has this idea that the soviet union is surrounded by islamic countries that will prevent the soviet union empire from expanding into countries like iran, afghanistan, and so on. expanding into afghanistan and so on but they thought it was best to remove the shah from power and have an islamist that would obviously be against an atheist type of government. they had this idea and it went forward with it. today, most of the problems that western nations are facing in the middle e