this is fred kagan who said about you in general petraeus after you had returned.ommanders often come in pairs. they can be added to the list. he said the subordinate every successful campaign pair has played a key role in designing an ample minting the campaign planned, and history does not always justly appreciate such contributions. why did the surge work? all of us understand the awakening was taking place. therefore you had put additional american troops, but it has to be much more complicated than that. >> it is opposite. the awakening happening when they realized we are putting more troops in. >> there had been some examples of that? >> they were very small. what had happened is we had gone through a time of almost civil war between the sunni and shia. when the americans came with greater numbers, we were able to go through greater differences, and the people felt more comfortable coming forward. they were tired of violence. a qaeda had worn out its welcome . they didn't want interference from he ran. when we decided to put more people on the ground, a give

i have studied him for many years. >> david petraeus even communicated with him. it is said that he is frequently in damascus. >> i can't speak for that. what i do know is that one of the concerns throughout the middle east is that this web of the force continues to extend in many different places in the middle east. and creating instability. >> this is an orangutan. >> at as part of the issue. >> he has only one boss. the ayatollah. >> i can't comment on the inner workings. i couldn't tell you that for certain. >> but you're fascinated by his operation. >> and it is something but you have to be aware of. i think that for us, for me, this is about instability. is it creating more instability? >> i will leave you with this, i know you have meetings to get to. it is interesting that we have now and play diplomatically, israelis, palestinians, russia, and it ran in negotiations with the -- the p5 plus one taking at the same time. these parties are somehow connected. it connects them to hezbollah, who was fighting in syria. and the saudi's are watching with great conc

petraeus in the immediate occupation, i was not there. based on reporting come in rupert -- appears to other commanders of his grade he had a more pro-active approach to try to rebuild rebuild, prevent the complete disintegration of civil society. i am not in a position to evaluate the facts. but i will say i am not sure how much effort along those lines would have been necessary to achieve the objective of preventing an insurgency to have a peaceful occupation for this reason, the people did not want us there. they did not want to be occupied. they did not want to be tutored how to run their country or put it together again. if on the one hand we could say his approach is a bit more and light into than those going in to kick down the door approach at the same time there was an error against, a paternalism that was implicit in what he was saying. you people need us here. we are here to help you. . . >> we are now too two past the last question. [laughter] >> this is the third pass the last or whatever but going back to the rumsfeld press

so think about dave petraeus when he was commanding in iraq during the surge and congress was deeply skeptical that the surge was working. what did the military do? they identified what they thought the right metrics were for which to hold themselves accountable, number of intelligence tips they were getting from iraqis, number of attacks on american troops. they collected data over the course of a whole year. they head that data lick so scholars could second guess whether anyone had better ideas than they did, and it was on that basis that they changed congressional attitudes. the power of ideas and the power of actually proving your case is how to win policy debates with the congress. and the state department doesn't have the bureaucratic machinely to build a budget that's defensible in the way the defense department is. and i'm a very strong -- deep in my heart, i'm an insurance actuary, and i think we need clean eyeshade budget tiers who will make the state department's budget as bulletproof as the defense department's is. >> host: kori schake has worked at the national security

politicians have been visiting protest camps in central kiev political science professor nicholai petraeus who is in kiev at the moment believes the e.u. doesn't have the best interests of ukrainian people at heart. one sided message. board or the policies of the of the u. and it is an attempt to attract ukraine to sign the association agreement i think it's a short sighted position one that seeks to divide drive a wedge rather between ukraine and russia whereas a more alongside it position but actually encourage both russia and ukraine to associate and come together with the e.u. and portugal there seems to be more of a divisive in a confrontational approach than one that aims reconsolidation well the e.u.'s efforts maybe in winning ukraine right now but in a few minutes we hear about the struggles and it's having in its having in keeping citizens in its current nations out of poverty. plane is being compared to a lady home on a want and takes money from an old an elderly gentleman but one sister and her time with a handsome young man but sometimes you know you really have to choose i mea

. >> to drive a toyota petraeus to the m -- jemmies but they have a private airplane and i wish i had a private airplane. >> many advocate to rse taxes but well-connected celebrities are quick to use your tax dodges. >>wning acres of land in new jersey but pays only $100 of state property tax because he raises honeybees' he qualifies for the honeybee subsidy. bruce springsteen owns hundreds of acres of land but pays little tax because a an organic farmer works his land his pour neighbors pay more. >> i don't get anybody trying to lower taxes but bonn jovi and springsteen publicly supporting for obama holding rallies but then cry tax cuts for their riches and they robbed of poverty programs and a social contract with america being destroyed the middle-class is harmed but then you rob those anti-poverty programs by calling yourself a former? that is the hypocrisy that is frustrating to see why i wrote the book calling of these people on their duplicity. john: one final example some of the activists are so eager to promote anti- capitalist they glamorize people like bill ears -- bill aye

. >> to drive a toyota petraeus to the ms -- jemmies but they have a private airplane and i wish i had a private airplane. >> many advocate to raise taxes but well-connected celebrities are quick to use your tax dodges. >> owning acres of land in new jersey but pays only $100 of state property tax because he raises honeybees' he qualifies for the honeybee subsidy. bruce springsteen owns hundreds of acres of land but pays little tax because a an organic farmer works his land his pour neighbors pay more. >> i don't get anybody trying to lower taxes but bonn jovi and springsteen publicly supporting for obama holding rallies but then cry tax cuts for their riches and they robbed of poverty programs and a social contract with america being destroyed the middle-class is harmed but then you r those anti-poverty proams by calling yourself a former? that is the hypocrisy that is frustrating to see why i wrote the book calling of ese people on their duplicity. john: one final example some of the activists are so eager to promote anti- capitalist they glamorize people like bill ears -- bill ayers

they made huge mistakes and no republicans and no word if petraeus is being held accountable. there were problems. the state department did not provide resources there and secretary kerry reinstated the employees that had been suspended for not responding to requests for more security in benghazi. both sides are not addressing the real issues here. >> i want to turn to you. we talk about hillary clinton in 2016. how does this impact the white house president obama heading into 2014. they spent a fair amount of the first part of the year dealing with the fallout from benghazi. >> i don't think that there will be a conclusive answer on this. the accountability issue and there is a great piece in politico about why we will never stop arguing about benghazi. a lot of this has political aspects and a disagreement within both parties about whether things are accurate and which are accurate. he was also saying that there links in the intelligence from certain al qaeda aspects. obviously there is some disagreement overall about what the conclusions to be drawn out of this. it will con

dana, 2012, the winner, general david petraeus. >> well deserved.010. >> a little trivia there. >> how about that? >> and kim kardashian. >> michelle obama, barack obama, nancy pelosi, lance armstrong, mother teresa, prince william, greenspan, and nelson mandela. barbara will pick a winner again this year. >> and kim -- whatever her name is. >> kimye. >>> a disturbing new poll shows americans don't trust each other very much anymore. we'll try to figure out why when "the five" returns and greg will be cheerful. >> not true. >>> one of the nutty things that makes america great is we're >>> one of the many things that makes america great, for the most part, we're friendly people. easy to get along' with, trusting and trustworthy. according to a new ap poll, surprisingly one-third of americans say people cannot be trusted -- can be trusted as opposed to 72. and almost half of the country felt that way. record high say you can't be too careful in dealing with others. it's interesting, too, this is when the crime rates are down, which i think would be on

secretary of state clinton had to know, president obama had to know and, quite frankly, general petraeus had to know yet he was going along with the story that this was a demonstration when they knew the level of the attack that was carried out. >> everyone involved got danger pay because it was a danger zone. kenya and tanzania. >> right. >> and so here we are again. the american people -- you have to wonder -- forget about the military and, you know, people not being sent in to help them under the guise of, oh, we thought it was over. what about the fact that we have seen this movie before? where is the accountability? what will happen now? >> well, there has to be accountability. that's the purpose of going ahead with tees hearings. more and more has to be made public going forward. we lost american lives. we had four americans killed that day, an attack that should not have happened. if it did happen, it should have been stopped. there should have been more reinforcements. >> we just had an american teacher killed not far from the consulate. what do we know about this? has al qaeda,

and petraeus left soon afterwards. >> and so does "the new york times," because the only thing amazing is that it was amazingly inaccurate. >> you think "the new york times" made this up? >> i didn't say they made it up. >> [ inaudible ]. >> this is such high-priced journalism because it is lacking factual justice. bob your education can begin right now. there was a name chosen by osama bin laden because they had to rebrand al qaeda. these are documented seize the by the navy s.e.a.l.s at his compound where he was killed. deal with this bob. >> why do you say that? >> because that is the fact. that serria is the name osama bin laden chose when he rebrowned al qaeda. that is a fact. >> let me get jediddia in here because i want to ask about the timing of the story. i think the editor of the new york times with the tweet said this is done now, we are our cocktail party talking point, anybody who thinks benghazi is a story is insane and now it seems they have stepped on their own story. >> they have to clear the way for hillary clinton also, remember. so she's tied into this in a bad way,

general petraeus is testifying. do you remember this hearing? probably. >> how many hearings do you think you have been in the room over the last 10 years? >> oh, probably about 100. >> why did you move to washington four years ago? >> so i could be here where our government is making these decisions. at that when obama came in, we would have a chance to end the wars and not getting into drone wars in such a big way. i want to have more influence. >> did you vote for president obama? >> i voted for the green party candidate. [video clip] >> all americans should be proud of their sons and daughters serving in iraq today. thank you. [indiscernible shouting] >> please remove them. >> no! no. >> throughout the remaining of this hearing you will be prosecuted in the district of columbia and will prosecute them under the law. >> who is that woman they were pulling out? >> she had never been in a hearing in her life. she had loved ones in the military. many of the people who come to these hearings are people who have lost children in the iraq or afghan

they didn't provide security petraeus come in the end coming here it is difficult to put a finger against one single actor to get i would strongly respond who is against it here behind the assassination and i came up with a metaphor using spanish clay, the name of a village in spain and the story is that there was an element in the village was very heated by the population and was assassinated and a judge a arrived from another town to investigate and began interrogating the villagers and they all responded the village of did it and the judge said one after the other and the village continue to say and they stick to the story. they don't point to anybody in particular. al qaeda for sure had ordered the assassination and the pakistani taliban, everything they did that nobody believes a kid fired, 15 and a half-years-old. nobody believed that he was the one that did it alone. i think that they had a political and a moral responsibility because they facilitated the crime by protecting her and i think the people around her, her own security team failed her because of an excusable omissions, a

dana, we know a lot of these people. 2012, the winner, general david petraeus.was a great choice. >> well deserved. he'd won it before as well in 2010. >> little trivia right there. >> now you got kim kardashian. what a comparison. >> j.k. rowling, nancy pelosi. laura bush. karl rove. hillary clinton. lance armstrong. mother theresa. very good choice. prince williams. the royals. and nelson mandela. barbara will pick a winner again this year. good choice. >> -- whatever her name is. >> kim-ye. >>> coming up, a disturbing new poll shows americans don't trust each other very much anymore. okay: . >>> one of the nutty things that makes america great is we're for the most part friendly people. easy to get along with and trust worthy. that may be eroding. according to a poll, surprisingly one-third of americans say most people can be trusted as opposed to '72 when almost half the country felt that way. a record high say you can't be too careful in dealing with others. this is when the crime rates are down all over. there's got to be a reason for this. what do you thi

. >> when you say the scandals involving weiner, eliot spitzer, petraeus, all different types of charactersrent jobs. but you put them altogether and as life has moved on and morality has changed, and you see much more liberal views on things like cannabis, whether it should be legal, should we still pillar pillarize people in a higher office -- >> i think elected officials are held to a higher stand by far. i think people take into consideration what they do in their public and private life. now, having said that, i will say i think people are much more forgiving. and particularly i think in the area of inappropriate sexual conduct. but i think the key to it is admitting it. you have people like anthony weiner. you have folks like senator edwards. and those folks did not come out readily and admit that they had done something wrong. >> and if you do come out and admit it, you have to admit everything. you can't leave the tap dripping. you can't go back and turn the tap back on. >> no, it is like being half way pregnant, you either are or you are not. there is no middle ground. >> when you

of the silver star and a bronze star to some of the people with ambassador crocker and -- general petraeus and that was a thank you from the polish ambassador, not from the u.s. state department. >> yes, sir. >> erik first of all thank you for your service to our country. my question is this. should we have been in iraq to begin with? >> well you know, but me back into that one and i can say now that iraq was lost. we have lost it completely to iranian influence. they did kind of like what they did in lebanon in the sense that they rebuilt militias into a powerful force and the real miss by the administration was in the last election there alawi won the election and his party, won a slim majority of the votes but al-maliki through political blocking and a lot of ire -- armenian influence maintained his post as the prime minister so that is why you talk about disenfranchised voters that is why you are seeing so much violence there. they say hey we voted. this guy has squeezed us out and we are now floating with car bombs so that is why this set aryans close there. look, i'm not a policy guy

he was a property jay of general petraeus.nd he came in there with really the reputation of being perhaps the best or one of the best military lawyers there currently is. and his -- when he talked about military economieses, he's discussed how sure they had some problems in the past but what we're dealing today is something very different than the first rather primitive order that came out in november of twufn. he points out the supreme court looked at this project and there have been two acts of congress that have authorized military commission trials. and the most recent one passed in 2009 and signed by president obama. added substantially more in his view protections to the defendants. military commissions today. he called them reformed military commissions. as posed to plain old classic military commission. or what they might have been before. are something that should not be confused with the most draconian and terribly unfair proceedings that could in theory have taken place had the supreme court permitted the first vers

military medal, the equivalent of a silver star to some of our people with ambassador crocker and david petraeus and that is the only thing that ever appeared in the state department publication was a thank you from the ambassador and not the state department. >> first of all, thank you for your service to the country. my question is should we have even been in iraq to begin with? i can say now that iraq is lost. we've lost it to completely the iranian influence. they did kind of a 11 lebanon the midst of the last election they had won their reelection in his party. one a slim majority of the vote. they maintained his post at the prime minister so that's why you talk to the disenfranchised voters. he squeezed this out and now we are voting with car bombs. i'm not a practical guide and i understand why the mentality of going into iraq happens when you have a terrorist cell and buildings in new york to pull off that kind of attack and all of the costs. now you have a nation state that has proven to use chemical biological weapons and its still pursuing the weapons of mass destruction i interest an

i'm reminded general petraeus' comment going up to baghdad. will somebody tell me how this things ends because i don't know. >> i think one the problems though is if the president and the reason why i have isolated this comment because they sure haven't presented an alternative. >> right. >> not only is it flat out wrong, but it shows that he is not even listening. it's one thing to say they haven't presented an alternative, which they have. but maybe he doesn't like the alternative. he doesn't even acknowledge the fact that there have been other options to try to deal with these problems there are a lot of republicans who want to deal with a lot of these problems with preexisting illnesses and everything. he flatly denies it even exists and sell it to the american people when it's not true. >> let me tell you, the fact that you are responding with some agitation because he is saying something that's not true. this is an effective argument. political argument. you say i have got my program. we have problems with it but they have nothing. what

rejected them despite the advice of secretary clinton who told me, secretary gates who told me, david petraeus told me. >> i don't want to get into it where various people stood. but there wasn't an obvious military way forward. >> rose: you disagreed with them and they had a recommendation to do something and you just, and the president chose not to. >> president makes the decisions. >> rose: but you advised him. >> yeah, that if you looked at the situation in sir ya, i think if you had had general dempsey and others here right now there was not a clear path forward in terms of military intervention by the united states. in lib ya, for example, we could see in front of us a military approach that we had a pretty high degree of confidence would work. we never had that with respect to syria. >> rose: is there a difference in terms of foreign policy from ot bama administration, from the time that you were there, you just left six months ago, the new national security advisor, susan rice, a new secretary of state, john kerry. >> there is a new guy at cia, john brennan the national security team h

david petraeus -- people from all walks of life. including hollywood. the oscars of science. why does it need to be so glamorous? he says that scientists should be honored. i asked why the prize needs to be $3 million. that is three times the size of the nobel prize. it is far less than bonuses that people get on with wall street. people have money to work on future innovation. it certainly was a glamorous event and it was exciting. a lot of people turned up for their friend mark zuckerberg. >> i loved the answer that conan gave you. they are scientist, of course you can make fun of them. >> it is funny. he said that when he was growing up, the jocks were cool. now the nerds are cool. it is all coming back. he said something like i guess i will be on the wrong side of history. now, people are having a lot of fun. we talked about how these companies compete. they compete so fiercely in silicon valley all the time. but really, they do often come together to work on things like this. i asked surrogate brain about that. -- sergey brin about that. he said he

approach to privacy put separate and distinct from that and while commissioner has taken this as an petraeus to flush the agenda there are others as in sure you know, whether it is the tax agenda or basic rules of competition or european union resources, all these push up a and it is difficult to operate under privacy so i do think it is important. i hope to hear what they're looking at this level but it is important to be aggregated so weaken the of the greater conversation otherwise this will be an opportunity that we already see as european companies start to take it vintage to look at them as a business opportunity. >> was there a question mark? [laughter] >> we are at times so combined your answer his. >> one of the things i found most interesting with european commission report on said harper was a recognition of value of data the economic value but coupled with the recognition the value is enhanced by the cross border flow. i have heard this a the eighth you talk about to create those loans but they did not read that with the latest reiteration. so for those who are directly involved

he was a property jay of general petraeus.e came in there with really the reputation of being perhaps the best or one of the best military lawyers there currently is. and his -- when he talked about military economieses, he's discussed how sure they had some problems in the past but what we're dealing today is something very different than the first rather primitive order that came out in november of twufn. he points out the supreme court looked at this project and there have been two acts of congress that have authorized military commission trials. and the most recent one passed in 2009 and signed by president obama. added substantially more in his view protections to the defendants. military commissions today. he called them reformed military commissions. as posed to plain old classic military commission. or what they might have been before. are something that should not be confused with the most draconian and terribly unfair proceedings that could in theory have taken place had the supreme court permitted the first version

to be resilient even in the face of our troop surges over the years and the work of stan and dave petraeusallen and the other great american men and women in uniform fighting as far as this huge coalition and through it all, taliban stayed resilient and i have to acknowledge that's been very disappointing and somewhat surprising. having said that, this year what happened was the international presence really got cut by more than half and yet, the taliban did not gain territory. the major cities, the major transportation arteries are still in government hands. now, admittedly they're backed up by us when they get into a pinch but they're doing 95% of the major operations themselves with minimal or no help. and i think that's very encouraging news. so we should certainly not be fatalistic about afghanistan. arthel: let me get back to the impact of the report and michael, i want to ask you two pronged question here. what's the impact of this report of president obama's deadline of pulling troops out of afghanistan by the next year and that tenuous negotiations to provide legal coverage and se

this is mikerel -- whenl, who took over general petraeus step down.one of the sunday shows, said the nsa should expand data collection to include e-mails and that that could prevent the next 9/11. david -- david schweikert tweeting that with the hashtag #nothanks. edward snowden telling "the washington post" i won. what do you think about those comments? i want to show you nasa tv live. showing a christmas eve spacewalks. we will tune in and listen to a little bit of this. [video clip] [no audio] host: this is a live stream of nasa tv. mission control. nasa has planned a christmas eve spacewalk at the international space station to repair work on a faulty cooling line. the astronauts working there. this is live on nasa tv. we will show you a little bit more coming up after today's "washington journal." for all of topic you. edward snowden telling "the washington post" that he won. duty, new york, republican caller. caller: thank you for c-span. snowden is adward hero. he let the public know what our government is doing to us. the president has made ch