qaeda, the taliban, and associated forces. this administration has construed isil or daesh as part of these associated forces the key that they be cobelligerents in the sense of having entered the fight against the united states alongside other armed groups. and the hot battlegrounds, active theaters, afghanistan, iraq and syria, russia says it has been invited there had by assad. the united states is participating there against isil. what law must the u.s. follow? well, under traditional laws of war, the law of initiating war, and the law during wartime under domestic law following the constitution and the authorization for use of military force, which brings to us what has been the position of the u.s. government since the second half of the bush administration. the united states is in a noninternational armed conflict with al qaeda, the taliban, and associated forces in response to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent attacks, and may use force consistent with the laws of war and its inherent right to self-defense under international law, and that the congress has authorized appropriate

isis is now on the battlefield, and the taliban is on the offensive, just this week taliban conducted a suicide bombing in cabos that killed over 60 people and wounded more than 300, most of whom were civilians including women and children. president has a decision to make. maintain or increase the current level of u.s. troops given conditions on the ground or continue with a counter base withdrawal, the answer is clear. whatever is decision, the president needs to make it as soon as possible. the uncertainty surrounding america's commitment to afghanistan discourages our allies and encourages our enemies. nato's forced generation conferences is in june and the nato summit is in july. at stake is whether nato forces will remain in western and northern afghanistan or whether those areas will be seated to the influence of iran or criminal drug range. have no doubt, nato will follow america's lead on troops and afghanistan. it's up to the president of the united states to show that leadership. general robertson, the committee looks forward of hearing your assessment on threats of homeland

taliban, initially. we were successful in iraq in our military efforts. we have been working to try to take back territory from isil that has been successful. but, we have been and we have been successful in efforts to support refugees in camps and make sure aid gets there. we have been less successful when it comes to governance, what many people call nation building, the economic and social implications and the ability to improve governance in countries that are failing. i would like to ask if you all agree with that and the extent to which you see the need to address that as being critical to countering violent extremism and, therefore, how do we do better with what we have been doing in the past? so far, we haven't been as successful in those areas as i think we need to be if we are going to address the concerns that we are all talking about today in terms of countering violent extremism. i don't know, i see you blinking. or nodding, would you like to respond to that first? blinking. you can blink too. >> i'm the nod, he's the blink. >> yeah. >> no, i think you are right on the

fighters. 35,000 to 40,000 fighters. add like 10,000, 15,000 in boko haram. add others in taliban. you have 80,000 fighters, terrorists. the question is how these terrorist organizations were able to recruit this huge number. the answer is simple. they have used two tools. first, very attractive religious narrative. two, they reach out to young people through effective use of social media. this is the lesson. in order to fight terrorism effectively, we need to develop a counternarrative to the theory of the taliban, al shabab and boko haram. comes also the importance of institutions in tunisia and egypt, and also the importance of reaching out to those young people. if twitter and facebook will help us reach out to them, we should use them. if local leaders can help us reach out, we should use them. if local languages will help us, we should use them. i remember a very good experience that after egypt has developed a lot of counternarrative and counterfatwas to what isil is doing and what boko haram is doing. we collected them in a book and we translated into a very local language in n

engagement in afghanistan and recommit their support. amid renewed violence between the taliban and government in kabul the afghan government must find ways to keep at bay forces that could reverse progress made since 2001. as these security threats loom, we must consider the human cost of increased instability and violence. it is more critical than ever to cultivate a strong, healthy and vibrant society and to deploy security and economic policies that harness the nation's potential. we in the united states have seen what happens when we take our eye off afghanistan and the importance of that country. in the past we -- we cannot allow ourselves to make the same mistake again. we look forward to hearing from the first lady on these issues at the nexus of state and society. she has played an integral role in the government's efforts to overcome the legal, economic and social impediments to progress. she's continual alley made women's, children's and internally displaced people's issues a central focus of the debates in government, since i'm not going to be introducing you i'm going t

weapons. it also failed to prevent taliban-linked groups from attacking tightly guarded military and government targets, some of which are located near important nuclear facilities. in syria and iraq, both the assad regime and the islamic state have been routinely using chemical weapons, albeit so-called crude ones, despite president assad's claims to have destroyed all of those on syrian territory. in belgium last week, the government revealed its concern that the islamic state was seeking to attack, infiltrate, sabotage, or obtain nuclear material from its nuclear facilities, which have a history of severe lapses. -- of severe nuclear lapses. surveillance footage of a top official of one such facility was found in the apartment of a suspected islamic state militant. two employees at another belgian nuclear facility left their jobs to travel to syria where they joined isil. and the same terrorist network that carried out the recent attacks in paris and brussels may have been planning some kind of operation at a belgian nuclear facility, possibly one that uses highly enriched uranium

imperfectly and a new deal social coalition. both of these president said the taliban, moral equivalence to the fathers or we will get rid of the voting rights act. in that respect that would make a parallel to andrew johnson and grant. there was an opportunity for reconstruction to happen and both these, not by their lonesome, did push back in a more revenges way. i would argue that is what ronald reagan did. reagan was a very amiable guy, but what i'm saying is, you have to look at the long term. what did reagan accomplish in his presidency and what did it for the political system, decades coming forward. i would argue both andrew johnson in the 19 century and reagan and bush put us in a bad situation. >> i want to ask the panel with this last comment, we have about three minutes left and one of the things i like to do is pretend i am judy woodruff. because everybody here has been on television with judy woodruff. if you're to address that, you have about half a minute for your closing statements. >> mine is really quick. a limerick i wrote in college about warren harding. there was an

everything by destroying evidence before it, here you have isis and the taliban and groups like that. they are united in the concept of just trying to destroy all evidence of a syrian civilization and bab loanian and christian examples of art in that region. the appalling aspect of it with some of these isis spokes men taking the pyramids down brick by brick, you begin to realize when they talk about widening out evidence of buddhist civilization, they mean it and they are committed to this goal. at the same time for the smaller antiquities that they can sell for the hard currency, they are not beyond engaging in that activity. i was going ask the doctor, i know how much you have worked on this over the years. this is coming back from the senate and could you talk about this concept of protecting through this legislation? >> thank you for your leadership on hr 1493. there is no mechanism that would prohibit the imports from syria to the united states. that same situation applies to libya where isil seems to be moving next. in order to prevent the objects and perhaps to convince the l

said -- the taliban, moral codes of the fathers or we'll get rid of the voting rights act and in that respect i would make a parallel to andrew johnson and grant. there was an opportunity for reconstruction to happen. and then both of these presidents not by their lonesome, you know, did push back in a way and i would argue that's what reagan did. very amiable guy but, you know, he did -- i guess what i'm saying is you have to look at the long duration. what did reagan accomplish in his presidency but what did it set up for the political system decades coming forward? i would argue both andrew johnson in the 19th century and reagan and bush really put us in a bad situation. >> okay. so i want to ask the panel with this last comment. we have about three minutes left. and one of the things i like to do is pretend i'm judy woodruff and since everybody here has been on television probably with judy woodruff is to say, you know, if you want to address that but also you have about half a minute for your closing statements on this panel as well. >> mine is really quick. mine is a limerick th

to fend for themselves. what does it mean to breathe free? under the taliban, it's illegal for madam arbour to feel sunlight on her face. it's literally a crime for her to, quote, breathe free. she can breathe only through a mask approved by the man who in effect owns her. so what happens when you put a man from that kind of society in, say, a scandinavian town. northern europe has enjoyed a culture of micked public bathing since the 19th century. but a benign social activity to germans and scandinavians is something entirely different to men from a culture where women are chatle. so female patrons of public baths are now routinely asalted. and in january, sweden's national swimming arena was forced for the first time to segregate men and women in the hot tubs. so good by to a century old tradition. migrant rights trump your culture. our response is oh, they come from a different culture. they don't know you're not meant to groeb women's breasts. so in germany, they put up picket grams with a breast and a groping hand and a red x through it. last month a mere fortnight after acing a

earlier, say, with the koran burning affair, groups like the taliban, you know, condemning americans and obama and using that as fodder for recruitment. but it wasn't until recently that we saw evidence that anti-muslim sentiment directly being used for recruitment by terrorism organizations like this. so here the leader of al shabab one of the leaders of al shabab using trump's call to ban all muslims is evidence that there is no gray zone. right? you either need to join isis or leave. right? and now you can't leave according to this narrative. so this is the danger and we have seen this before. we have seen this with the coland burning affair. we have seen this with the sophomoric film the danger of muslims. the danger that the fringe ideas they can do when they travel abroad is tangible. they not only upset people, quite understandably, but they contribute to the misconception of a controversy among the u.s. government to be anti-muslim. and i think this is probably the most dangerous threat we face now. others will speculate, of course, that the rise in anti-muslim sentiment creates

evidence that went before it, here you have isis and you have the taliban and groups like that that are united in their concept of just trying to destroy all evidence of a syrian civilization. babalonian, any christian examples of churches or art in that region. and i think the appalling aspect of it, when you consider that you see some of these isis spokes men and other islamist spokes men talking about taking the pyramids down brick by brick, you begin to realize, when they talk about wiping out evidence of buddhist civilization, they mean it, they really are committed to this goal. at the same time, for the smaller antiquities that they can sell for the hard currency. they're not beyond engaging in that kind of criminal activity. i was going to ask dr. dr. gerstenblith. i know how much you've worked on this over the years, we have the bill that has been introduced. to try to address this, this is coming back from the senate this week, could you speak maybe about this concept of protecting and preserving cultural property through these -- through this kind of legislation? >> thank

in afghanistan in throwing out the taliban snisinitially. we were successful in iraq and our military efforts. we've been working to try and take back territory from isil that has been successful. but we have been -- and we've been successful in efforts to support refugees and camps and to make sure that aid gets there. but we've been less successful when it comes to governance, what many people call nation building. economic and social implications and the ability to improve governance in countries that are failing. i would like to ask if you all agree with that and the extent to which you see the need to address that as being critical to countering violent extremism and, therefore, how do we do better with what we've been doing in the past? because so far we haven't been as successful if those areas as i think we need to be if we're going to address the concerns that we're all talking about today in terms of countering violent extremism. and i don't know, i see you blinking -- you nods, mr. blinken. would you like to respond to that first? you can blink, too. >> i'm the nod

you have isis and you have the taliban and groups like that that are united in their concept of just trying to destroy all evidence of a syrian civilization. babylonian, any christian examples of churches or art in that region. and i think the appalling aspect of it, when you consider that you see some of these isis spokesmen and other islamist spokes men talking about taking the pyramids down brick by brick, you begin to realize, when they talk about wiping out evidence of buddhist civilization, they mean it, they really are committed to this goal. palmyra would be a case in point. at the same time, for the smaller antiquities that they can sell for the hard currency. they're not beyond engaging in that kind of criminal activity. i was going to ask dr. gerstenblith. i know how much you've worked on this over the years, we have the bill that has been introduced. 1493. to try to address this, this is coming back from the senate this week, could you speak maybe about this concept of protecting and preserving cultural property through these -- through this kind of legislation? >> thank

taliban, and associated forces. this administration has construed isil or desh as part of these associated forces the key ta they be cobelligerents in the sense of having entered the fight against the united states alongside other armed groups. and the hot active battlegrou battlegrounds, active theaters, afghanistan, iraq and syria, russia says it has been invite there had by assad. the united states is participating there against isil. what law must the u.s. follow? well, under traditional laws of war, the law of initiating war, and the law during wartime under domestic law following the constitution and the authorization for use of military force which brings to us what has been the position of the u.s. government since the second half of the bush administration. the united states is in a noninternational armed conflict with al qaeda, the taliban and associated forces in response to the 9/11 attacks and subsequent attacks and may use force consistent with the laws of war and its inherent right to self-defense under international law and that the congress has authorized approp