fraser. renuart is nearing the completion of his tour of duty and he is planning on retiring later this year and this could be his last appearance before this committee. we give him there for a special welcome and a special thank you for his long service. general fraser is appearing before us for the first time as the southcom commander. thank you for your many years of dedicated service to the nation. we want to offer you our best wishes, general renuart as you conclude your long career. we would also ask both of you to convey our gratitude to the men and women who serve in your commands and to their families for their commitment and their sacrifice in carrying out the missions of the commands in which they now serve and have previously served. u.s. northern command was created following the terrorist attacks of 9/11. it is charged with two primary missions, the defense of the u.s. and providing a defense support to civil authorities and circumstances with the u.s. military is needed to resp

the first is fraser's quote, which is we tend to think of prosperity and affluence and apathy.at's just not true. and sometimes they can be true but it's not always do. and we make that criticism about young people today. and we should be careful about that. we tend to demonize youth culture that in the '50s it was rock 'n roll. today it is the new games. we tend to assume that what young people do that's different is going to cause our society to collapse. many whites thought that rock 'n roll would lead to interracial dating and that would be the end of american society. in the same way that people talk about video games being the end of american society today. and the third and interrelate part of this is we tend to take young people, we don't tend to take them serious as political actors. what the student she was is that young people are serious political actors, and we dismiss them as ignorant or self absorbent, and narcissists into because of the way that they address. they dress differently than as. they pierce there is that they like to get tattoos to they do all sorts

we're not going to let you retire yet, general fraser. speaking of part a ship with nations, currently, one of the best ways we have to build and sustain those partnerships is through the western hemisphere institute for cooperation. i was pleased to see both of you comment on that in both of your opening statements in your written statement. we're pleased to serve on the border when sewinsec. what are your thoughts regarding winsec? what is it provided the nations that choose to provide personnel? >> thank you for that question. it is a very important institution for us. it provides a lot of capability- building. it has a real focus on democratic values, on human rights, and a course lotus focused on human rights. as you mentioned, it is really partnership building. it is not just partnership building with members of the united states military, but across all of the military's that are in those courses -- of the militaries that are in those courses. in haiti, u.s. officers had gone to school with a canadian counterpart in the brazilian c

i've been fascinated by this quote which is what did fraser ms.? how did he get it so wrong? here's a person is spent his whole life studying the african-american community. he is one of the most eminent african-american scholars. things change completely and he was wrong. i've always been curious about this, which, and it is not just frazier, what did everybody miss? one of the things i think that frazier did not see was how frustrated young people were and how the combustible mix of slow progress and a new youth oriented pop culture to produce activism as well as apathy, engage mid-as well as in different and i want to just tell a couple of stories about young people to give you a sense of both their frustration and how the culture changed in the 1950s to make decisions a possibility. imagine for a second that you are a 13 or 14-year-old in 1954, which will make you 19 or 20 or 15 years old in 1954, you are 21 when the brown decision came down. john lewis, who lives in rural alabama thinks that it starts reading the newspaper everyday looking for news about when the school

and i'm in quite a bit of dialogue with general fraser, and another example would be after the earthquake in haiti, we have been in close coronation in terms of support from the many european nations who have pitched in and helped. so a very strong relationship bear. and i would actually add also a strong ovation set with afrikaans. those three combatant commands, tend to work together very closely. and it's partially a propinquity of geography, partially the personal friendships and partially the geopolitical issues that you correctly highlight. i have a concern that touches this issue that i just raised with potentially assassination plot against resume caribe running through spain and that is also -- it is geopolitical as you said with a concern that iran was projecting its influence through spain and also through latin america has become a destabilizing force. and certainly europe is, you know, tremendously important for security interest. and if we have a nuclear armed ivory and, that's going to impact your area of responsibility. can you speak to that issue? >> senator, i find i ran

the original purpose of this report was to inform congress in the 1970s, congressman fraser and congressman harkin introduced legislation linking human rights to a policy. and they needed information about how do you make those decisions. it's now much more than that. it is used throughout the executive branch, throughout this building, but also other agencies of government. it's just by journalists like yourselves, and import a, it is now a great source of information for people living in countries around the world who are often learning about things in their own countries by reading the report. we are doing much more to translate the reports, to disseminate them throughout the world. there is a huge international readership of these reports. the reports are predicated on three broad assumptions, which secretary clinton and the president have repeated in assessing or in promoting our human rights policy. one as she just said, we believe in a principled engagement. part of that engagement requires us to be informed and have an understanding of the world. that's what this report is seeking t