this is a scrub building going into a dome, down by my friend and neighbor, greg smith. i don't like to write in the evening unless i have to do something for england, and then of course england is eight hours from here forward, and, you know, if you're going to get something on someone's desk by 8:00 in the morning you can do it until late at night. but that's the shape of my day. it's not particularly monk-like in seclusion. i spend a lot of time on the telephone with three or four people up in olympia, washington, who also does the editing on the books. our business operations are run right here in petrolia by becky grant and david wheeler, incredibly efficiency of course. counterpunch books, we started thinking we were publishing things in the internet web and wanted to keep on the form. our stuff on the counterpunch site doesn't go away. it's somewhere in the of fast sort of black hole of or in print communications. probably some government archive, god help people who have to go through it. but we thought we wanted to put them in hard covers. we began with a book c

we've got bill rafferty from the uk, to his right i've got our communications officer rear admiral greg smithgot one of my two aides, and then my executive officer, colonel charlie flynn. >> general, thank you. >> general mcchrystal, when you answered some questions from representative mckeon, you talked about your force planning and assessment of criteria, continually doing so. when president obama as commander in chief stated in march that our real goal here was al qaeda in pakistan, and then one of his three objectives was our partnership with pakistan, as you came up with your forces, was that part of the benchmarks for determining the proper number of troops? >> most of our assessment was -- for forces was what we recommended for inside afghanistan to create conditions that would be complementary to progress inside pakistan. so i think i'm answering your question here, we did not shape our forces for anything inside pakistan. >> so the 35,000 taliban that are in pakistan were not part of your assess the of how many troops you might need to take care of those key population centers, even

navy greg smith runs our communications jake mcfaren is our political adviser in the headquarters, caseywelsh is my other aide, american aide. hi 27 months in iraq before he came to afghanistan with only five months off between those two deployments and then dave silverman works in my personal staff obviously another naval officer. >> great. thank you very much. we'll begin our questioning now and i'm first going to recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. green, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for continuing the hearing and i want to thank both ambassador eikenberry and general mcchrystal for what you do and your leadership you're doing for our young men and women not only serving in the in military but obviously in the civilian side, having been the embassy in afghanistan a couple times and been hosted there, it's not the plush area anyone ever thinks but i appreciate what y'all do and i know members of congress do. general mcchrystal there, are currently 94,000 afghan soldiers on the ground and current plans call for increasing the number to 134 by october of

navy greg smith runs our communications jake mcfaren is our political adviser in the headquarters, casey welsh is my other aide, american aide. hi 27 months in iraq before he came to afghanistan with only five months off between those two deployments and then dave silverman works in my personal staff obviously another naval officer. >> great. thank you very much. we'll begin our questioning now and i'm first going to recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. green, for five minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman and thank you for continuing the hearing and i want to thank both ambassador eikenberry and general mcchrystal for what you do and your leadership you're doing for our young men and women not only serving in the in military but obviously in the civilian side, having been the embassy in afghanistan a couple times and been hosted there, it's not the plush area anyone ever thinks but i appreciate what y'all do and i know members of congress do. general mcchrystal there, are currently 94,000 afghan soldiers on the ground and current plans call for increasing the number to 134 by october o

smith: mr. speaker, as part of a nationwide effort to pass the right kind of health care reform, a constituent from austin, gregholliday, has written an open letter to congress. he represents the organization, commonsense texans. quote, my name is greg holloway. i speak not only for myself and my family but also for over 100,000 other texans with whom i collaborate and who i know share my views. you tell us that you are concerned about health care for our disadvantaged citizens. we are too. we wrote a plan published by the austin american statesman that would immediately allow up to $100 billion annually to be sent directly to private health care and health insurance for the needy without a raise in taxes. you ignore any of our alternatives and instead raise taxes, increase costs and draft a bill that excludes millions and provides no meaningful health care benefits until 2013. stop this bill and give us health care reform that will help, not hurt, our country and its citizens, end quote. the speaker pro tempore: for what purpose does the gentlelady from arizona rise? >> i request permission to address the hous