just meeting the subcommittee on international law going to say humans human rights and all this will come to author and pursuing to notice i will call up the proposed subcommittee report entitled the decline in america's reputation why the purposes of mock up before moving to the to approve the report is there any debate if not without objection t report including the views of the ranking member mr rohrabacher before the members before the members is hereby approved by the subcommitte e last year the subcommittee conducted a series of ten hearings on international opinion about the united states and its foreign  policies i'm sure my good friend and ranking member the gentleman from california mr world will agree that it was an exhausting if not exhaustive process which and that was only because notoriously hostile to the pollsters but seriously there was a hearing why i chose to make this topic the subject of the very first hearing we held during my tenure as chair of the subcommittee a reason why we've invested so much of the subcommittees time and effort in holding the ten hearings in preparing the report we releasing today and that rationale is summed up perfectly and something written over one hundred forty years ago about the importance of our national reputation to our ability to conduct foreign p worthy of our ideals as the end of the civil war drew near ulysses s grant was thinking about what role the united states could play in international affairs and here's what he wrote that nation united will have a strength which will enable it to dictate to all others conform to justice and right according to his biographer giles flood grant then contemplated the limits of power the good it could achieve if used wisely in the dangers of of using it in an immoral way grant concluded with these words power i think can go no further than the moment conscience leaves physical strength will of ale nothing in the long run the data presented to this subcommittee during the ten hearings and compiled in the report we released today show that the world thinks that our conscience has indeed left us and that our physical strength has come to be seeing not as a source of solace but as a threat not as a guarantee of stability and auda but as a source of intimidation violence and torture as grant feared our strength as a veiled us nothing indeed it unilaterally use as cost us much we had dangerously depleted would grant with the time he wrote those words was still a military command identified as our greatest source of international power our reputation for what he called conscious i would substitute for a moral authority and a second report the subcommittee will address the complex issue of precisely what impact the decline in a international standing has had on our ability to conduct foreign policy and safeguard our national security and national interests today's report though has a simpler and a singular focus this report seeks to establish a baseline of fact data perhaps not indisputable but strongly suggest of about what has happened to our international reputation and why the report is being issued by all members of subcommittee with the exception of the ranking member m so i propose to proceed today by reading the summary of the eight main findings and then turning to mr will back at the summit to summarize his views as included in the report and then are asking our witnesses who have read both the report and his views to comment on the findings and what they believe their implications for our foreign policy and national interest of the findings and a very summary form it's true number one it's true u s approval ratings the falling to record lows in nearly every region of the world generally positive ratings that existed from the one nine hundred fifty s to two thousand and one have moved to generally negative ratings since two thousand and two approval ratings are highest in non muslim africa and lowest in latin america and in muslim countries it's the policies opposition to specific u s policies rather than to american values or people have driven this decline the key policies are the invasion and occupation of iraq support for repressive governments worldwide a perceived lack of even handedness in the israeli palestinian dispute and torture and abuse of prison is in violation of treaty obligations it's the perceived hypocrisy disappointment and bitterness arise from the perception that the proclaimed american values of democracy human rights tolerance and the rule of law have been selectively it annoyed by successive administrations when american security economic considerations are in play it's the unilateral is a recent patent ignoring international consensus particularly in the application of military power have led to anger and a fear of attack that a transforming disagreement with u s policies into a broadening and deepening anti american isn't as suggested by the government accountability office also number five it's also the historical memory u s domination remains a potent image for long periods of time and that image is used to describe it current u s polic six it's the lack of client tact contact with american and americans reduces anti americanism but not opposition to specific policies  america particularly students and even their family and friends have more positive views about america the non visit is by some ten percentage point seven it's the visas into action with u s immigration and the visa process is a significant source of for us to of frustration with the united states muslim applicants in particular report that customs officials career a perception that they're not welcome this perception spreads across their communities through poverty stories about travel to the united states it's the proceeds war on islam combination of all the previous findings has created a growing belief in the limited world that the united states is using the war on terror as a cover for its attempts to destroy islam i distinguish witnesses today will assess those findings i will introduce them shortly now though i want to recognize the distinguished ranking member for as much time as he desires about thank you very much mr chairman and we have held ten hearings and one review of polling data related to the perception of the united states around the world now we've held at least five hearings questioning the motives and the actions of u s employees who are involved with the rendition we have held twelve hearings on the occupation of iraq and let's not forget the five hearings on the actions of our military men and women at guantanamo and i would hope that this hearing markup indicates that we have covered this area of interest and we might be concerned enough on other elements of foreign policy and other elements of human rights to actually discuss some of the thank you i do thank you mr chairman for the spirit in which we have worked together and although i have some very substantial fundamental disagreements about the conclusions that have been reached as well as i might add the choice and the magnitude of the subjects that this or that we should focus or time on the report today if their report today is correct  and apparently a lot of people are carrying what we've heard these here and don't like us and don't because we're going along with government policies that are or we reflect  attitudes that they that in some way they distain or that they think is deserves their condemnation is german the committee report starts with this on page five in the aftermath of september eleventh two thousand and one in that attack there was a worldwide sympathy and support for the united states let me note that there may have been a sympathy on the day prior to that day and during the clinton administration i don't believe there was worldwide sympathy for the united states but the report states that this sympathy for the united states on nine eleven was  right off the bat and in fact if anyone reads past that headline the end of the moon column lamond limone i'm sure they probably don't like it because we don't speak french but  they do have anyway it is clear that the columns author aside that headline is blaming america for those attacks the column is not sympathetic to america and that's where we start off with supposedly as judging where our popularity has gone that column is part and parcel of the anti american ism that is spewed round the world and continues to be viewed around the world here's a quote taishan from that column that the committee didn't include comma quotation marks america in the solitude of its power in the status of the sole superpower now in the absence of any soviet counter model has ceased to draw other nations to itself or more precisely in certain parts of the globe it seems to draw nothing but hate and here is more of that but the reality is perhaps also be america not an america whose own cynicism has caught up with bin laden as the american authorities seem to think really is one of the one who ordered the september eleventh attacks how can we fail recall that he was in fact trained by the cia and that he was an element of policy directed against the soviets that the americans considered to be wise might it not then have been america itself that created this demon and to quote let me note that this myth that the cia funded bin laden has been perpetrated here and perpetrated throughout the world and maybe they believe that the fact is saudi arabia poured hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars into the effort in afghanistan on its own it did not need to finance bin laden and in fact bin laden was a very independent player and in fact  proceeds after this i might add from the conclusion that america's reputation has indeed declined throughout the world either because there is a fundamental disagreement between america and these other nations or because america has embarked on a series of policies which contradicts past pronouncements of values on human rights and so on well let me be very clear i have rather significant differences with  this ministration a large number of domestic and foreign policy issues many of them happen to be human rights based where i just agree with the administration especially on china its dealings with other dictatorships like china it is not the way this is ministrations tried to conduct the war that has been declared upon us by radical like the radical islam in this country and throughout the world there are radical islamists in this country who are out who consider themselves friends of those people who conducted the attack on nine eleven through some mistake and there are many people overseas in islamic countries who consider themselves friends of those who conducted the attack on nine eleven and there are they have every right to people have every right to their personal opinions or personal religious opinions but let us recognize that when people are fanatics to a certain religious or political concept where the baby nazis are whether they be communists or whether they be radical islam assists and thus they set out to hurt states hurt us kill our children kill our friends our neighbors to terrorize the rest of us well then i i don't think we need to try to just beat ourselves up and say how could it be that they don't like us i don't think that we need to do that i don't think it makes any sense at all why does that really hate me no sometimes there are radicals in the world because actually we stand as a force in this world to thwart the expansion of their views and i'm very happy that over the years the united states of america has thus united states walked out like my father did off his poor dirt farm in north dakota to go out and fight japanese military is in the naziism and save the world from those evils and i'm very proud that during the cold war that we stood firm against the communists until that philosophy collapsed of its own inconsistency is an evil and now we have another threat but in each one of these threats to civilization america has been heaped with abuse or total non involvement or in some way picking by the people what we were trying to protect around the world and i will tell you without the united states of america there would not have been and without the young twenty year olds and seventeen year olds who landed at d day and yeah there were people who would prefer that we only look at the mistakes of that liberation and see how many frenchmen are many other people were killed in our liberation of that continent from the nazis and i know that during the entire cold war we faced the same type of of backbiting our undermining of the effort to hold firm against communism there are the anti what we call the anti anti communist during that era spent all of their time instead of fighting the threat to this western civilization at the time undercutting what ronald reagan was trying to do and it was a lot of reagan finally dead was free the world from that threat that horrible threat been slaves so much of the planet and now we have this other we have this challenge should we be so concerned that people don't like us or should we be trying to do what is right and what will eventually lead this planet to free itself from a radical islamic terrorist threat that will slaughter not just americans but slaughter moderate muslims and let us know that for every one to every american that's been killed in iraq there have been probably ten or twenty iraqis that have been killed by these radical is trying to terrorize the people of iraq into submission thank god that we have held out long enough so that now the people of iraq are  sure that their country isn't taken over by these radical islamism who would take a teacher into the middle of a courtyard and behead the teacher for teaching girls we're teaching young young ladies  giving them an education that's the type of enemy we're up against we're up against the nazis who didn't have any any doubt they had the right to murder countless jews in order to purify the planet just like the radical islam assist don't have any doubt they have a right to behead people or to fly planes into buildings and murder thousands of civilians in order to create this better world that they know their religion will bring the world  i don't think the united needs to apologize and let us note that even if it makes us enemies in the short run as did the battle against communism in the long run people will see and they won't judge us by our mistakes and matter how much we try to focus on the mistakes they'll judge just by the outcome and we do need to correct the mistakes and we need to have open discussion of the mistakes because in no human endeavor has ever been attempted where mistakes haven't been made and that certain elements within it without an effort don't do the wrong thing we need to pull those elements back when people are doing the wrong thing and in the war against radical islam like some of the people who've and final comment that we are us united states that we are not as hated and we are not as negative as the hearings that we've had suggest as the pollsters would suggest during that we have noted the pollsters noted that we have such a high high negatives and yet in germany and in france when the people of germany and france went to the polls they elected parties that were demonstrably pro american in eastern europe countries that were under communism and now for the first time and and and they are easing into  democratic government they are overwhelmingly overwhelmingly pro american and maybe they have their disagreements as is germany and france with us but in essence i believe that  we still have a great deal of people around this world who in their heart understand that america is the force the only force that's going to protect the decent people of the world against radical military who are like my father who marched off that little farm in north dakota to save the world in nine hundred forty one thank you very much mr chairman thank you mr rohrabacher let me  report is not in any way meant to apologize it's the support from my perspective is about our national security and with meals for any comments he might focus on on correcting their mistakes that certainly this report has highlighted and certainly this is more than worrying about being liked around the world i think  this these worldwide trends that have been identified really of historic proportions it's about hurting our ability to do the right thing i'm pleased to have been a part of these hearings appreciate the leadership from the chairman that is brought this about the experts that have come forward just a couple of comments like to make it really the report highlights several things that the first a most obvious that this is really about policies and not the american clearly the what we've seen there's a distinction there and that obviously has to do with who runs our government and who's making those policies  was it a meeting recently that had several european parliamentarians there and there was a lot of discussion about various u s policies but there was almost unanimous agreement that just the fact that we were having policy discussions around our presidential campaign about how we can do a better job on so many areas they said was really helping with europeans in terms of the fact that america was having this debate about how we can change these policies that was actually helping improve our image the other thing is that this is about the perception of hypocrisy you know not our values when you dig into these reports even though there's disagreement with policies or strong belief in the idea of america and what we stand for so there's a great reservoir i think of respect  for our country in that regard the other thing i would point out that it says it's about the visas not the visit there are great statistics about people who have visited our country ten times you know ten points more positive views about our country if they have had contact or visited our country but we're making that more difficult with some of our immigration policies it's impacting tourism here it's impacting business impacting science and academic exchanges all things that we should be engaging in better finally it's about fighting terrorists not a war on islam you know i think there's been some reckless language used in that regard even president bush recently has acknowledged that some of the language he's  used that has been inflammatory and heard our message and i think it's important that those of us that are focusing on those who would do us harm i really focus on terrorist s regardless of their religious persuasion and be careful about making that into a war on islam so with that i just want to commend the chair and say look forward to  understatement our extensive so i'm going to attempt to be brief let me begin with dr hibberd who is a professor at paul university and a leading author in the field religion and politics with emphasis both on the islamic world where he has conducted field research for extended periods in on the united states is a prolific author as all of our witnesses i'm not going to read the list of books because it's extensive and next we have dr esther brahma who is the deputy director of the center for trance atlantic relations of the schools of the day anstey international studies at johns hopkins she too is the author of numerous books and reports on u european relations and multilateral institutions she served on the public policy staff in the state department under president bush and president clinton before him she always also worked closely with  one of our favorite witnesses the united nations assistant secretary general for peacekeeping jane jane hall luke next we have dr john who is the executive director of the center for international studies at mit for more than thirty years he's been a leading analyst and author on such topics as u grand strategy nuclear weapons in the conventional arms trade he writes both foreign policy specialists and the general audience his most recent book is titled multi lateralism the challenge power international audit and structural change david frum is a former speechwriter for president bush so he'll feel right at home here in the company of the distinguished ranking member who served in that same capacity for president reagan although i never did read any of the speeches that he claims he he authored mr frum is a resident fellow at the american enterprise institute and is the author of the right man the surprise presidency of george w bush and co author with richard perle of an end  please and thank you all power in the world to have standing and reputation that these are indeed vital national interests and i think we would also all agree that mere disapproval elsewhere would not suffice in itself to persuade us to alter policies that are in our national interest  i note in the study for example that one of the causes of some friction with latin america is the existence of american immigration policies yet none of us would suggest that mere disapproval of the existence of such policies should lead us to abandon immigration policies so we have a fine balance to strike and this subject is so serious and so important that i think we want to be very confident when we are measuring we are indeed measuring something real and let me suggest for concepts that i would that i think are important to help you in your deliberations the first is that people who do engage in opinion research point out the more deeply rooted in opinion is the less likely it is shift dramatically over time when we look at opinions about issues like the death penalty and abortion issues that most people have very strong views on the shift in those views are glacial if we see if we see dramatic swings in opinion that's just we're looking at an opinion that is not deeply fixed so when we know for example that in the the surveys suggest that one of the population of spain changed its mind about the united states in the twelve months between the spring of two thousand and five in the spring of two thousand and six that suggests probably not a very deeply rooted view the second thing we need to consider many of the countries in which we are interested are in free countries countries with state controlled media and countries in which there are high levels of illiteracy and lack of access to information we need in case of those countries to ask ourselves are we measuring something that people independently believe or are we measuring an artifact of propaganda created by government or quasi government and of these and when we look at many of these countries that are that are on free or that have large degrees of illiteracy we need to be ask ourselves is this something real i think we need to consider also we need to be very careful about romanticizing the the standing of the world the united states in the world before two thousand and one in two thousand and two this report of the committee is has approved tends to go on speaks very lightly about america's standing in the one nine hundred eighty s in one thousand nine hundred now there are some good reasons for that but the data before we all became a lot more interested in this question after two thousand and one and four surveys after two thousand and one are much better than our surveys before two thousand and one still i striking that early two thousand and two for example long before iraq was ever discussed long before abu ghraib that we found very negative views of america through the islamic world according to the polls  only twelve percent of saudis had a favorable opinion of the united states nearly two thousand and two and only thirteen percent of egyptians gallup polls conducted in the one nine hundred ninety s rated pakistan the most anti american country on earth long before any of these events we had a problem with with america's standing in the islamic world and we had a problem in europe the ranking member very astutely read deeper into that on written on the days that the towers were still smoking itself having for itself having created bin laden as a well as a weapon against soviet union a false charge and this was believed already on the day in the gallup surveyed european countries in the very week after nine eleven to find out their willingness to support american military action now this report points out that high proportions of europeans later said that they would have been prepared to support the united states if the united states had operated in iraq under un man made it but that kind of hypothetical counterfactual question is to my mind a less powerful gauge of public opinion than the actual question posed in the actual week after nine eleven in that two weeks of anger in those two weeks only twenty nine percent of french people only twenty one percent of italians only eighteen percent of the british only seventeen percent of the germans and only twelve percent of the spaniards so that they would support u s military action against terrorism we have a deep problem in the transatlantic relation and you'll correctly identify that i worry that you have looked for the wrong cause and this brief brings me to my last question that i would urge this committee to consider there is a simple model of how we form opinions about the world we begin with perceived facts and from those perceived facts we arrive at our opinions but one of the things that people who are interested in survey research have noted is that opinions actually can often sway perceived backs through the one nine hundred ninety s for example we discovered that one of the most powerful predictors of whether you thought the economy was doing well or badly was whether you're republican or democrat democrats thought the economy was doing well in the one thousand nine hundred republicans but were much less likely to say the economy was doing well now there maybe some elaborate explanation of this but it seems that the simplest one is that if you don't like the president you don't want to give him credit and if you do like the president you do want to give him credit i worry that we see something of this in especially the arab and islamic world that the grievances cited are genuinely cited but are they the cause of the opinion or does the preexistence of the opinion lead people to cite these particular grievances and if it is that latter then that suggests that to say well it's our policies is not very helpful because whatever many of these policies are based on very deep roots in american interests and american values and many of these policies many of these policies are inescapable i noticed for example that we neither is unpopular because it supports repressive dictatorships or that is said to be the case it is also unpopular because it overthrew a repressive dictatorship in iraq if you're unpopular when you support them in unpopular when you overthrow them it is very difficult to see what policy guidance you will offer you so i would urge the committee in its deliberations in this important subject to begin with the possibility that th the deep attitudes that find expression in causes that may be more fluctuating less profound less important and i thank you for your attention today and for the honor of addressing this com thank you to the chair of the committee for this operation today i support the findings of this report anti americanism is clearly on the rise and this recent rise is linked to the actions and policies of the bush administration i will add one example here it's my written testimony and that is about iraq which i spent a lot of time working on as of today one of the most pro american populations in the middle east is that iran this could be a very important asset if we were able to move if we were able to improve our relations with the islamic republic but much of what the united states has done with respect to iraq from the overthrow of most  eighty three to defining it as part of the axis of evil to placing primary brand blame on it for violence in iraq is counterproductive we risk losing the admiration and affection of the people of what is arguably the most important country in the region and to add insult to injury without achieving anything in return is also important to consider how bush administration policies combined with longstanding habits and attitudes set against new challenges in the world to create negative consequences those challenges include a truly post cold war security policy one which moves beyond the ingrained modes of thinking about the massive use of military force or support for authoritarian states or the belief that there is no choice in between a second challenge perhaps the most important is a more equitable approach to economic development globally and most particularly a razor sharp emphasis on sustainable growth at home and abroad that reduces greenhouse gases when we preach india and china and others about this problem we're viewed as hypocrites but more important we have an opportunity lead and we must seize that opportunity and the third challenge is how we collectively undertake our global problem solving which is to say a firmer commitment to inclusive and multilateral decisionmaking that we are not meeting these challenges effectively constitutes a primary cause of anti american sentiment consider the war in iraq it's dreadful consequences result from the failure to meet the challenges i just outlined the threat from al qaeda was diverted into an old style military intervention to overthrow a state that had little if anything to do with the kinds of political violence that occasionally threaten interests it was done in part to secure an oil rich part of the world and it was administered from the start as a neo liberal economic experiment and of course the invasion was the invasion decision was taken unilaterally the iraq war bundles all the reasons why anti americanism is on the rise globally congress has an opportunity to help start a national conversation about how american values match up with current global challenges how policies can be more consistent with the best of us principles openness democratic decisionmaking respect for pluralism and so forth but also how we must rethink our values to meet the enormous challenges of this century particularly the need for sustainable economics and cooperate of global governance at a more specific level we need some fresh thinking and support for so called soft power in pursuing goals of security and equity diplomatic assets are enormous and varied but undervalued and under support of congress could assess how these assets are used and how they can better serve to meet the challenges we face commercial diplomacy for example can support not only u s economic growth but vastly more equitable and sustainable policies the world i urge you to to marshal the exceptional power in the universities and labs to address the immense challenge of global global climate change and sustainable development this is a political as well as technical challenge of course but we can demonstrate our seriousness to the world by deploying our most dynamic resources to solve this problem and finally i urge a sober assessment of global governance how the u s can lead but also cooperate through multilateral institutions which most of the world's people see as a vital indispensable instrument of their own aspirations and goodwill we need to respect and to discover a new how these institutions many of which we created serve common values i think if we meet these challenges in this way among other comment on this important report and i commend the subcommittee on its contribution to this question of america's standing in the world and i support its findings in my remarks this morning i'm going to focus on two particular areas the impact on  transatlantic relations and our relationship with europe of the issues raised by the report and also talk about the impact on our standing in multilateral organizations and the difficulty in the interest because of the decline of america chairman by focusing on our relations with europe these countries are largely our friends these are countries are literate well informed and know us well we do not provide foreign aid to these countries we do not have a financial lever over them but they are our closest friends and allies the relationship with european countries many of the issues raised by the report resonate many europeans our european friends are concerned the perception of international affairs this morning we've talked about it as the report begins talks about the law and article and we looked at that in detail but we should also remember that immediately after nine eleven we saw an outpouring of support for american our fine diplomats and many of our talk about the numbers of people who rushed to the grievance books in solidarity with the american people after nine eleven and indeed after nine eleven decline of support for the u s and i'll highlight just a couple points as i mentioned after nine eleven attack our allies wanted to support us they wanted us to work through nato and they wanted to work with us in afghanistan unfortunately as we know now the support for the united states was deeply impacted by the invasion of iraq which meant that the policy of the iraq actually undermined the already existing international support for a work  afghanistan therefore the policies directly affected one of our most important efforts to deal with the response to i love him it's also meant that the decline of support for the united states in europe has made it more difficult to manage many issues within the alliance and even on topics which are not controversial such as inviting countries that have met the qualifications for nato to membership means it's more difficult for the us to advance its interests in this area  even at the most recent nato summit in bucharest were all of the allies agreed that we wanted to invite new members who had met the standards that won macedonia was not invited were not able to resolve the issue of the name of the afghanistan the decline of support for the united states has made it more difficult to manage our most important ally and i would also say that even in the n t terrorism campaign where there's been important law enforcement cooperation across the atlantic  even here the poor record of the united states on human rights issues and civil liberties issues has undermined our ability to work on these areas indeed even our close friends are concerned about how we manage civil liberties issues they've seen the impact of the detention and so forth and question our ability to manage information that we gather and that even when we talk about the effort to gather information on people coming to united states they're less willing to work with us in this area even with our closest partners our friends and allies that the decline in the stand of the united states has made it harder to work with them and they would like to work with us but we've made it more difficult also in the international arena when we look at relations even within the united nations among people who want to work with us which is a bit more difficult here when we look at efforts to reform the decline of this day the united states has made it harder to enact reform we've long said that changing the u n was fundamental we all agree that this is important but when we come to support international efforts  our lack of data has made it harder in two thousand and five finally the rest of the world came around to a point the united states has long advocated the need to radically change the previous un human rights commission on the  human rights issues was not in a position to engage with the rest of the world to make a better council so the council was created as a flawed institution because we were not able to be part of the diplomacy in a constructive way our our lack of standing on these issues institution for the united states the president the world bank has always traditionally been an american but when nominated as a symbol of american unilateralism to the world bank it made it more difficult to advance ideas of be talking about those my comments reflect those regions let me affirm at the outset what i see as the two central contributions of the subcommittee report the first is that it recognizes a defining opinion of america a source of anti american sentiment if you will is rooted in our policies not our values this is important for a couple of reasons important part because it's indicative of what i see as a central paradox of american foreign policy in the middle east while rhetorically we remain to development human rights law the reality is that we rely upon autocratic regimes to promote our interests and this has been a time one problem going back fifty years has become more problematic than post nine the problem of our values is much more difficult now the second point from the subcommittee report is i think it's important to recognize both for policy makers as well as for citizens because if we're going to win the war on terror we need to be smarter about how we and those who do not because in some respects our policies need to separate these out and undermine the support of the islamic militants now let me say it's a brief word about the mainstream populations the report is a nice job of articulating their  causes or their underlined sources discontent and i think the point is very helpful in this regard it reinforces my own findings talking to people and living in different countries that they are not hostile  not hostile to rule of law they're not hostile hostile accountable government on the contrary they yearn for it any have been a number of friends who are democracy activists in the middle east and they will tell you that what what they need more than anything else is constitutional government and that's one of the reasons why they are so critical of american foreign policy particularly egypt where i live for some time they don't understand why we can talk such a good game about democracy and yet bankroll and continue to fund a military regime and give them on aid to the security services of that military regime now there are many other issues as well which are not i won't get into but america's unqualified support for israel in particular his treatment of the palestinian population in the assumption that we were not there to promote freedom but we are there to basically grab the oil and that remains a continuing source of anti american sentiment and something that should be addressed finally in terms of the concerns of of the mainstream  and again highlights idea that we have more or less benign intentions behind our policies now in terms of the islamic activists again let me differentiate between the militants those who advocate violence and those who do not and the reason why this is important is those who don't advocate violence that really raise the issue of cultural values they're the ones who are concerned about the intrusion of western mores into arab muslim societies they're the ones that are hostile to secularism they're the ones who advocate a greater role of religion in public life and it's really from this slice of the ideological spectrum that the idea comes that the you know they hate us for our values but the point is and this is really kind of the crucial point is that while this may be the driving force for these religious conservatives it's not necessarily the driving force of mainstream populations or even of the islamic militants ok now in terms of the motivations of the militants u  the first point is that this paradox american foreign policy this tension between our short term interest of stability in the regions or the middle eastern resources and the longer term goals of the dock democratic development has been a perennial problem  lacks popular opinion in some respects it neglects the underlying social economic and political conditions that give rise to extremism in the first place and so when someone says what i really help about this report is it is going to give a guide to help us try to fight the war on terror in a wiser manner so what to do and this is my concluding comments first off i would argue that we need take a broader view of the war on terror we need to look at it not just as a military struggle against  a group of militant organizations but i think we also need to look at the social economic and political news which give rise to extremism and we really need to take these component of the conflict more seriously into that and this is kind of second point we really do need to abide by our values we need to take democracy seriously we do need the legitimacy that being the beacon of freedom brings to us we can't sacrifice that for short term gains there are other kind of settlement making move making steps towards some kind of being perceived as a neutral arbiter on this front will help mitigate a lot of anti american sentiment i think another issue we need to do is we need to figure out a game plan for iraq whether that's two years five years ten years whatever we need to make a commitment that some point time america will be out of iraq and to demonstrate to the air populations that we're not there for the oil that we don't want permanent bases that we do have a game plan for leaving and hopefully as they say in arabic and shot a lot of really leaving a stable iraq behind finally is my last point i think we really you need to take energy independence seriously four dollars a gallon of oil hasn't hasn't waken some to the fact the reality is oil funds extremism whether she extremism sunni extremists and what have you until we of your testimonies was for their insightful and i think with the of reflection on the on the part of all of us i think in part i agree with all of  a minute and terms of its utility i think it's important to recognize what what we can from the imperiled data and accept it winning the hearts and minds if you're going to make progress we have to win the hearts and minds i think this is been the underlying theme in terms of general but i think in terms of a recognition is important that this isn't about popularity our national interest isn't simply about you know winning the winning the presidency of the of the student body you know this is about our national security and in the of our national interest that g a o report that i alluded to was issued back in two thousand and five it was a in the form of a letter transmittal it's about i think this was you might have been you dr tannen your reference to commercial diplomacy i mean the reality is that in that letter back in april of two thousand and five it was expressed that if the entire american is that noted began to harden that it could very well and our national economy we hear a discussion today about the we domination that's the appropriate word of the designation of the euro are possibly the end  the current sea in terms of buying and selling oil what are the implications of that in terms of g d p in a national economy so this isn't just about we as a people wanting to feel good this is not intended to be a guide in terms of how we feel better about ourselves this is  about some level are crass national security and national interest and it's meant to be the beginning of a lot the creation if you will and we welcome input continually in terms of how do we design that blueprint to win the hearts and minds so that it's a win win for everyone   well you know a more careful analysis might indicate there's been a shift there but that's governments come and go populations and added to serve society are a different animal i can remember in the run up to the to the invasion of iraq all of us and i  think mr from at the time you were probably in the white house and let me be clear i opposed him voted against that the authorization for that invasion but i think it came as a surprise to all of us including a rather substantial assistance package to the united states from the united states rather to allow american military personnel to come in through northern iraq through the the elected representatives of the turkish parliament went back to their constituencies and heard if you do that you're not going to get reelected so i think to me that's a very stark in real example of why we have to not fool ourselves and kid ourselves about what the realities  e and my memory is that that's in terms of charity because there was the withholding of united nations approval that that action was taken impacted those society that population the texas population we have been our steadfast allies and and now there's a a a subsequent finding i forget who did the polling that indicates that about two thirds of the turkish population believe this is to me incredulous believe that if they were to be a dispute that the where we might do a better job engaging with them as an example for other parts of the islamic world so that's my first part of the question and the second is  terms of the language we use and how we can use that language and make that distinction between the terrorist and extremist we're focused three dimensional chess board and how your actions on one level have effects all throughout and while we may be able to win the military battle we make our actions on one level are going to have implications on the social and economic on another level and the political one another so well we move on one chess board we're having unfortunate ramifications on the other chessboard and this goes back to again part of way in which we sell the war domestically in this country and we do talk about as a clash of civilizations or i think the phrase these days is more a struggle for civilization or struggle for civilization values and that feeds into the huntington rhetoric which ironically is had a greater resonance in cairo i was actually at the university of cairo for a conference on the clash of have other languages that you think can be used by policymakers and leaders here that would help us better focus on the terrorist and would not  inflame other parts of the islamic world sure it's freedom you know freedom and democracy and the republican values that that we espouse separating that out from civilizational rhetoric and recognizing that you know freedom and democracy are not limited to the western tradition and that all traditions have have elements within them that are consistent with liberal constitutionalism in islam for example there's a strong emphasis upon justice so if we got away from the idea that we want to impose democracy even start talking about accountable government  constitutionalism those types of that type of rhetoric you know can kind of change the frame of debate and i think in the red because one thing is the packaging but i think it's really the substance the policies that really need to change in this is kind in some respects gets back to the heart of the report that you can say all the nice things we say but as long as we're still pumping one point three billion dollars a year into the egyptian security services and giving them your technology so they can monitor every one cell phones and  tap everyone's emails and you know it's problematic and people realize what's going on and there is a separate military class that runs that you know that country until we can change the point out a problem president bush especially the very beginning the war on terror went to great lengths to emphasize to deemphasize any possible connection between terrorism in the mainstream of the islamic populations in fact  his famous september twentieth speech to the joint session of congress in two thousand and one he described i'm not going be able to quote this verbatim but approximately he describes the al qaeda terrorists as a minority within the extremist wing is not so not only they were the extremists of the extremists the trouble with this was that it quickly bumped up against the actual perceptions that many people the united states and europe had which was that this these statements were not quite accurate that this was not that these extremist views were not the minority within a minority they were very broadly shared one of the one of the mr chairman your last most recent statement you began by talking with the utility of this report and there is much insight here but there are some counter counter there's some dangers that have been i think neglected that this latest statement brings to mind when you try to tell the american public something that does not meet reality when you say it's a minority within a minority you always have the risk of stoking a counter reaction i think we saw a little bit of that with the dubai ports deal here was a case of there's this populist explosion against a deal i think that most of us recognize was very not at all injurious the united states people many americans felt they had that they were having dangerous unduly minimized for them and when we use this language that says a minority within a minority whereas in fact it's actually quite a substantial minority we risk a counter reaction there's one of them there's another risk again i think is not mentioned this report we have been very conscious the president has always been very conscious about not trying to inflame opinion worldwide and one of the ways that that is manifested itself is when there are terrorist attacks within india which has been a country that has been a real target of terrorist attacks just this spring hundreds killed in a series of attacks now and in three different cities if i remember right united states has been very soft spoken in its condemnation of those attacks the condemnations of come from people the assistant secretary level in the department of state but will spokesman but the pride of the president when he says anything says it i a written statement released from the right white house not in his own words at this as we try to minimize the counter reaction to the words of the united states we risk alienating friends very important friends potentially supreme lee  brands by showing a lack of sympathy for them when they come under terrorist  quickly one of the problems with the rhetoric coming out of the united states is actually not the president i find myself and reluctant agreement with mr frum but the i think i think the president has tried very hard not to not say inflammatory things and i congratulate him for that that's different from policies of course but but still in terms of language i don't think that that is the primary problem the primary problem for anti muslim sentiment in this country is from civil society from some elements of the right wing blogosphere for example which town is this anti muslim  rhetoric day after day after day and this is a global you know that when we talk about globalization communications is one of the most globalized of all the sectors that have political significance and people read those blogs  they hear about them day after day and it would be nice to see that this is not a government responsibility because after all this is this is a realm of freedom of speech it would be nice to see members from both sides of the aisle  condemn this kind of rhetoric which i think is very damaging to the interests of the united states could you give us a couple of specific examples i think if you read the blogs of no no i know you have a specific blog michelle  to conduct foreign policy for examples by increasing foreign public support for terrorism directed americans rising the cost of lowering the effectiveness of military operations would suggest that the decline in america's standing has made it harder for our allies even those who do want to work with us and who want to help share the burden of this important mission makes it harder for them to public support and therefore they probably deploy fewer resources that would be helpful for example currently of course numbers vary their approximately fifty two thousand troops in afghanistan that composes all twenty six nato countries and fourteen partners of those over twenty three thousand in our american troops and always although we're an alliance of twenty six we're bearing a large part of that and i would suggest that because it's tough for some of our close  have to defend having their troops in afghanistan even those who are in the south but just count on the netherlands that are right there in the front lines with us they have a tough time and are the kind of are saying is make it harder for them to work with us on a mission for nato in afghanistan thank you also been reflected in restrictions or conditions on engagement from a patchwork of different conditions from different partners in that coalition indeed yes congressman that is very much been the case it would be ideally in terms of military effectiveness better if nato could deploy all of the assets across the country but indeed as you note for many cuts for certain countries because of the lack of political support for example in germany it makes it harder to deploy those troops everywhere therefore those countries have to put limits or kabi out what those troops do making them less militarily effective when working within all alliance setting regarded for many years as being their principal ally and this was in contrast to europe western europe gave them a tremendous amount of military equipment sold a lot of equipment  have attempted to but turkey on a fast track to membership in the e u and many many many other things i think all good policies apart from military assistance i think the  membership was a very important step for all of europe which is now of course and you know kind of a state of suspension but but the results of i think what is generally perceived to be anti islamic policies is what's at the root of the of the change of opinion inside turkey and this has a lot of consequences it has consequences media consequence was the kofi annan e over the action in iraq there was a turkey's essential to to our oil interests of it because it's the pipelines i essential to peace in the caucuses it is essential also it is it continues to be a major supplier of of labor in europe and of course the immigration issues and  the emotional backlash against many from that region in europe is also a serious issue and we can't lay all these these many  issues and the controversy surrounding them two to two american policies but there is a there is a causal chain here that we have to take into account i mean why has turkey turned essentially against the united states in many reports in many respects and what are the cons clint's of that term i think it's something that's very sober and this is just one one country however it is two to that region broadly define world they happen because america acted and others reacted that the united states is the cause and everybody else is merely the effect there are deep changes that are going on in turkish society and culture many of them tro those changes have indigenous roots inside turkey i wish it were true for example with dr rimmer that if there were that that and that was there is something that the united states could do some alteration of policy would make europeans less more willing to engage in militarily in afghanistan but i don't think there is anything in the bilateral relationship between the united states and europe today that explains their rules or that the rules they impose on their forces they were the same problems in bosnia in the one nine hundred ninety s the same problems in kossovo with those that the european attitude toward military force is an indigenous event within europe in this case they are the cause and the united states is the  t and in many ways if we are to take seriously the advice to be more humble to be more conscious of others to be more respectful but perhaps that advice should also lead us to believe that not everything they do is a result of something that the united states has done first let me just chime in very briefly there are a number of things a number of policies in the middle east that limits general anti american sentiment and limit the ability frightened by the more nuanced approach to the treatment settlements in the i q patients the palestinian people but that policy them in the current policy of unqualified support is a huge liability and it hinders the ability of arab states to be openly pro american and also fuels an unfortunate tendency within the arab press to generate to allow a number of stories that are hostile to israel and it generates anti western sentiments as a arab allies you know the saudis have diplomatic representation in in iraq and i think we've really blown it and it's a real liability and they're trying to figure out when we're going to fix it so i mean these are these dealing with our relations with mexico and ramos and campeon german worked with me to make sure we had good hearings and has always been open to other ideas as well so i don't want to seem like i'm being totally negative as i accuse other people sometimes of being totally negative towards things i have let me let me just note that america's biggest military commitment during the  ninety s was in the balkans and we intervened to what to defend muslims against being massacred by basically christians serbian christians were involved and massacring great numbers of muslim people at that same time bin laden and his group were engaged in various terrorist acts against the united states and at the same time opinion in many muslim countries was just as negative about the united states as it is today and that's when our number one military operation was aimed at protecting muslims from being killed by and things that arrive from the human nature when you in nature is free to act as they as they would choose to be as a choose to act let me just a couple of housekeeping with the position that you've advocated on global warming today and to mention two of them richard lindzen who is one of the most respected scientific minds in the country from the from mit is totally disagrees with him that we have to be worried about the video to build up and that we're going to regulate everybody's lives on the planet on that kerry emanuel another professor noted scientific professor at mit totally disagrees with you on that now whether or not that means you have every right to advocate your position i think it's a wrong position i think trying to super impose that on the world will just create  to discuss the science of global warming there are i think it's fair to say among the qualified climate scientists in this country and indeed around the world  there's pretty close to a consensus about the relationship between climate change and human industrial activity but my point is  slightly different and that is to say that there is a there is a challenge that we have before us and that challenge does have to do with climate change and other  environmental protection or sustainability challenges that we are perceived widely throughout the world is not pain whether it's through  the international efforts international treaties that are on the table and have been proposed to some extent endorsed by most industrial countries around the world not all or the implementation of goals for reduction of things like greenhouse gases we are widely perceived i think correctly as being well behind many many other countries particularly those of western europe australia japan and others who are generally considered be part of the the western industrial world and i think this does create a sense that the united states is simply not playing by the same  roles and that those create i think a level of anti americanism which is profound let me know that i'm very happy that the united states doesn't play by their rules that we away there is not a consensus on global warming in fact the word global warming has been now stepping up to this hoax that is being used as leverage to get us to agree to treaties and and and and policies that our people would never accept if they had a choice back to other issues besides global warming let's get right down to this idea of whether the united states is and this is after all what the hearing is about where and whether we're losing  r popularity in the world because we are not supporting those fundamental values that we believe in as a people and  ly one comment about turkey if you study very closely and vote in the turkish parliament and what forces were at play when the turks refused to permit our troops  access to go into iraq during that condor in that part of the conflict you will find that the moderate islamic party that is now a majority in the parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor of permitting the united states to do this and it was the old secularists who voted almost unanimously against it that carried the day and that tends to go against this argument that it's america's alienating of the islamicist that had that impact and i was very surprised to find that out because i had i had to go to turkey and talk to the people over there before they pointed that out to me because i've never seen that pointed out in the american exactly the type of positive trend among muslims that we should applaud in that we have a group of moderate muslims who come to power in turkey and  they are certainly endearing to democratic principles as we would hope that other countries and they voted against us in that particular case actually the moderate muslims were the ones voted for us and it was the secular as we're on the other hand we're being condemned for supporting the old line in regimes like saudi arabia now you can't have it both ways i mean are we unpopular in the muslim world because we're pushing unrealistic say you can't have it both ways people are having it both ways they condemn the united states both for supporting autocracies and for overthrowing them in that they can but there is much unhappiness because the united states is associated with egyptian government when it tries to control the press or if you're with the courts and yet there is not anger against the turkish government which is increasingly unfortunately interfering with the press in trying to control the courts i think when we are trying to analyze public opinion when we are looking at the data that is amassed in this report we need to pay attention to the to the structure of the human mind behind the data why is it your question the beginning why is it that bosnia does not resonate as a fact and yet israel palestine does resonate as a fact the fact that we need to be i think a little bit more sophisticated in the way we treat this survey data and and not to know and understand that opinion often prece people that comes first is the perception of fact that comes second and that is an extremely if we if that is true that observation about how the mind works is true then we would be making a big mistake if we imagine well let's go through this list of stated grievances and imagine that by somehow regressing them that we will solve the problem no european state no western state tilts more toward the palestinians and more against israel than france to us and yet in the towards western support for the military regimes of the region and that's a continuing source of antagonism now there was also criticism of the you know the neo con dream to use your phrase not because it was promoting democracy but because the perception was that democracy it was just a means of selling the strategy of western domination and that what was really driving the neo con vision was regional hegemon had very little to do with  and everything to do without imposing american power on the region now there is a view that certain regimes are no longer useful to the us and so we're going to you know eradicate them some hussein being the first there's talk of the saudi regime being  there is a certain amount of cynicism and skepticism of what america's intentions are within iraq along and hence a lot of skepticism of the new countryman me make two quick comments first in terms of bosnia is actually an interesting point relationship is that while there's actually quite a lot of support for supporting democracy even the most recent marshall fund report notes is actually quite a large support amongst europeans for supporting debarked examples in europe and north africa and elsewhere but  but we actually create additional problems because we make it harder to advance the very values that we hold important for international order let's just note that the outcome is not we were not done in iraq and the situation is still  place if we walk away with our tail between our legs and some radical element within that society is able to take over and you can bet that we will continue to be condemned forever for what relationship between saddam hussein and and then al qaida the comments by the president's chief of staff in terms of you know you know mark of the war and before labor  day and then democracy promotion and concern about the to asian over almost was the detail wagging the dog again  which leads to the cynicism in the skepticism and let's put it right out the perceived hypocrisy of where we are in terms of the promotion of democracy and in our actions what i found fascinating and i'm going to yield right back what i found fascinating is the almost universal  approval of american values uniquely american flags and how do we market them and at the same time and deal with the realities of what the world is on the one hand we can talk about saddam hussein and yet we invite islam karimov into the oval office  you know we have  kazakhstan being described by the vice president as a good friend secretary rice talking about o b l and of equatorial guinea is a good guy i mean it's confusing and i think it's something that really has to be thought through in terms of how we do promote our values stick to them and deal in very practical terms with the issues that we have to deal with dr his observation about oil and independence i think that american policy reflects the strengths and weaknesses of our people of our system and the strengths and weaknesses of our leaders  and some of the complaints that my good friend and the chairman focus on for example the ones who just focused on meeting the excuses that we had for  justifying our intervention in iraq some of them some of the arguments that were made and was very involved with writing those positions i know that i think they reflect think he was probably determined that i was a speechwriter for president reagan for a number of years and i was lucky enough to work for a man who had a different way of approaching people in a different attitude military alliance you might say that every one of their tanks every one of their rifles every one of their pieces of artillery every one of their jets were all soviet provided there was any  iraq and vice versa in order to prevent those very negative forces in the middle east from going into other pro western countries and creating a bad situation but never were we supportive  the things at duke university and he wrote a book i think the title is friends like the sense there's also there's a fair bit of documentary evidence on this and i'll take i'd be happy to send take a look i've heard a lot of it and i will tell y  and pointed to repeatedly and his statements meetings going out to meet with moderate muslims so that there would not be the backlash against islam that would d to that degree he's really reached out but now let's take a look at what we're talking about among the muslim community i happen to believe that we are going to be successful in this war and i have no hesitation against radical islam the radical islamic movement has declared war on us that we have to have the moderate muslim population which is the overwhelming part of the muslim population on our side or we lose we lose unless the moderate muslims and to the degree that we were able to mobilize very devout muslims in afghanistan to do the fighting necessary to remove radical islam from afghanistan shows you the of that strategy but it is important that we note that without those moderate muslims in afghanistan in fact there are very devout muslims in afghanistan who oppose the taliban we could not have succeeded there as we have succeeded to the degree that we have how do we define radical islam and how do we define who are those muslims who are that we need to reach out to and are basically in muslims that advocate shari'a law for their society people who would advocate that women not be given the education that men are given people who are advocating that all sorts of crimes against what we believe are crimes against women terms of stoning women to death if he's committed adultery and things such as that are we are ultimately it's the willingness to use violence to impose their vision of hans's of their vision upon the rest of society and the problem about sharia law by nature is a back up of the essentially is nothing more than islamic law just ok if someone is imposing sharia law democratically obviously we we believe that democracy people have a right to choose their own system through a democratic process but in and of itself you of itself but the treatment of women and the whole concept of some of these concepts that i guess i'm not as educated on as you are there's there's been a continuing debate within the islamic world over how to interpret one vision of what an islamic society ought to look like and a vast majority of people within these monocle don't buy that vision i mean they they may be swayed by his critiques of the west and his critics of what the what the motivations of the west are  in afghanistan or iraq but they don't say by the vision that he he proposes so i think we're finding that now we're finding out in iraq where after a long period of time certain areas of iraq were then controlled by these which is the the body if you will of this is a lamb a lot in tradition exactly as a spouse in violence from how you how you feel to oppose it if you oppose it if it's imposed are and i'm not i'm and that's the question is is it violent in its nature and the fact that one should in place that it's mandates on the people are based on a berman is civil society here in this country reflecting exactly the interpretation of shari'a and his limit clause that was just articulated and i say this respectfully erroneous lee by the ranking member well that's the concern let me reclaim my time of time then because let me note i am not an expert on but i am concerned when i hear people who claim that they are fulfilling shari'a law suggesting that women must wear burkas from they head to the top and if they don't united states position should be that we do not believe in that and that is inconsistent with our goals and that is the way that you make the people of iran aware that you are on their side rather than the side of the nutty moola that run that country because you make it very clear and you don't and you don't step back because your policies that are being defined as being inherently negative toward the iranians when in fact by taking a tough stand there are you know unacceptable their rule except will we are indeed allying ourselves with the moderate elements in that society who don't believe in that and i think that that could be taken also as an example for the rest of the muslim world if people are advocating shari'a law people were advocating that the clerics run their country perhaps those are the people that we should just are basically not america's allies but moderate muslims who are open to basically more much freer and open society those are the people that we want to work with throughout the world i would think that's a good strategy and please comment i'm done thank you very much but if anybody on the panel would like to comment on that that's fine i just i just have one  comment and that is that it's a big complicated topic so it's hard very concisely but but it's the implications of how we oppose  iranians don't like the regime as it is now that's not necessarily it's not necessarily the case that they are against an islamic republic that is a republic that is run according to some muslim principles the complexities of iranian politics are things that we can't get into here but i would not assume that because they important point for us here is well even if we believe that some majority of iranians don't like the application of islamic law in iran what is it that we do about it do we threaten them with war do we impose sanctions on a regime that hurts mainly for aronian people i'm not i'm not saying that  threats or force or sanctions or other kinds of or what i would consider or support you know the president has come under criticism here during the lead let's note that during this administration today in terms of public relations and  promoting a ideals of democracy this is ministrations basically spent twice as much or at least a huge amount more i want to make sure it's plays a huge proportion more money on that effort than happened during the clinton administration heard on panels on the issue of iran a plea coming from those who are ardent opponents of the current regime in  iran if you will represent the the voices of those who are in iran please don't send us money please do not send us dollars the same issue  today i did say being discussed fervently within the pro democracy activists within cuba it's not a question of how much money and i'm not saying this that by appropriating the money reflects nothing but good intentions it's a question of doing it in a context and within a blueprint in a full understanding of how to be effective how do we achieve the goals i think that we all would hope and if you don't mind i'll move to mr meeks i do disagree with that with that concept i think we should be supporting those elements and that they want to start to listen to them with that put me down for supporting the iranian resistance thank you ok mr meeks i can't help one of the go somewhere else but i have to make some comments because i think that what i've been just listening to is part of the problem while others are starting to look at us in a different vein i can only imagine what we would have done  country because sometimes you know the things that we are accusing and we see incorrect i should say as opposed to accusing what we know is incorrect that other countries are doing well you know not too long ago forty five fifty years ago this country was doing some things this country in the name of democracy there was a whole group of people who may look like  and said that and christianity was utilized to a large part in this country to justify slavery we didn't get rid of christianity and say christianity and condemned the religion of christianity it is how we deal with these things and based upon our history we should know that we should do differently because surely we would not like what we are doing upon other people done when we looked at the regime in south africa we never call the axis of evil when people were fighting to change what was take to change what was taking place there the fact of the matter is in this country we're in the visuals we're trying to change dr king for example you know we celebrate him now that he's dead but he was alive we call him a communist we said he was a rabble rouser creating trouble making disturbances and our government and our democracy you know i had a whole thing here that i was going to go through that in this congress when w e b dubois reminded me of you to agree doc the term when he was talking about what was taking place in this country and the with the beginning of the cold war people were looking at him as if he was crazy yet here we are again i think that and then it is not just a matter of how the muslim world is looking at us and that they and i think that's why mr chairman what you've done with these hearings is fantastic not just the muslim world our allies you know when we start calling them you know it seems to me when people look at what we say it is different and i want to grow you know some people say that love is not just the democracy just as it is in love with you you can easily say you love somebody and then do something else but you know when i think about it when we disagree with someone our ally the president united states calling all nato we in this building because france disagreed with us change french fries to freedom fries that's what we did when someone disagrees and this is not the muslim world these a this is nato and then we look at the statistics in the numbers but get the muslim world there was a study that was done and it revealed that the united kingdom's favorable opinion of the united states has gone from eighty three percent to fifty three percent this is not a muslim world country in france is gone from sixty two percent to thirty nine percent in germany it's gone from seventy eight percent to thirty seven percent in spain it has gone from fifty percent to twenty three percent so this is not just the perception of the muslim world and you can go want to show similarities in countries in central and south america and why people look at us and say we have a periodic complex well if any objective person from the outside was really looking in at what our policies are it is do as i don't do as i do because if you do as i do i'm going to condemn you so we do have to look internally and i say all of that breathing that we are living in the greatest country on the planet but because of that you know w e b dubois and i will use that and one of his quotes testifying at a hearing here he said the idea seems to be that we can conquer the world and make it do our bidding because we are rich and at that time have an atomic bomb even if this were true it begs the question of the right injustice of our role why in god's name do we want to control the earth is it because our success in ruling man and at this time to do we want to rule russia where we cannot rule alabama how have we equip ourselves to teach the world that teach the world democracy we chose at that time secretary of state burns trained in the democracy of south carolina and we want to unravel the world economics of the modern world we chose a general trained military doctor at west point marshall this was this is history and you know and people were condemning him saying that at that time and how the rest of the world was perceiving what was going on so i'm saying that we have that same context and the same thing that we're dealing with today and so let me i'll ask miss the from first i guess because i believe and i was listening to testimony and reading testimonies i was sitting here you are one that advocated in the invasion of iraq the question is are you surprised by the damage that the invasion did to the public opinion about the united states not only in the muslim world but also with nato and in kuwait allies of you look at in the kuwaiti region these us strongest allies that the invasion has changed their opinion of us so are you surprised i mean i heard my esteemed colleague and friend talk about it but folks still say that it is you know going into iraq i  i look at numbers from early two thousand and two and late two thousand and one and what i see there are very negative assessments of the united states long before the possibility of a military conflict with iraq was ever contemplated i think we need to take more seriously deep structural reasons for resentment of the whole western world that pervades the islamic world problem and a long term problem and it reflects some deep structural perceptions some deep structural crisis in that region of the world well from and i don't want to get into a discussion of guantanamo or abu ghraib or what have you but i think it's here refutable that the shift has been dramatic in your statement that at the end of two thousand and one and two thousand and two let's go prior to two thousand and one the disparity be in terms of the approval ratings of the united states is enormous is of a proportion that i think compelled this subcommittee to take a look at the causes and produce this report i mean i don't know what polls that you're referring to but as i indicated in my opening remarks i mean we had pollste who traditionally represent in potus in terms republican interest as well as democratic interest and there was a consensus and i don't think that can be denied and again to  speak to what mr meeks was suggesting it isn't just the islamic world and it strikes me i think i think it was your dog being who did a poll in terms of latin america mr meeks and i think considerable time in latin america and the president president bush had a negative rating of eighty six  percent in this transforms not in terms of his personal approval but into every action that is taken by the government receives a different r gets a different reception whether it's a good policy or bad policy and the irony in that particular poll was that that eighty six percent the sample was extracted from the elite the economic elite and the political elite in i think it was ninety nine ratings were favorable and this is there's a certain irony to what is in not in non muslim african societies  chairman your own observations there should lead i think to some very hard questions that point perhaps in a different direction from that which you and mr beaks are are going i mean president bush came to office determined to build relationships in latin america he with the criticism of many move his attention away from the traditional multilateral trade negotiations for example to emphasize a free trade zone of the americas he ran  any definition a permissive immigration policy and worked hard to build a even more permissive immigration policy and yet you have the results you see the question so i am not disputing the that the  numbers collected here are true and and even that the numbers collected in europe are reliable i'm not so sure the numbers clocked in the middle east are are reliable but the question is what do they mean what do they tell us why do people interpret certain facts in certain ways why is it that when the united states launches what was supposed to be a massive redirection in favor of latin america it leads to a negative result why why  is it that we have this deep readiness in parts of the islamic world to seize on the data that is gratifying to anger stories about the israeli palestinian conflict and so determined to ignore and blank out data that ought to lead to a different conclusion like in bosnia and i would not let me interrupt and will of you give you plenty of time to respond i want everyone else and i want to yield back and i  not going to ask any of my own questions in any event so don't think we're going to keep you here that much longer but there's also in the report an observation about historical context  and i want to get away from for a moment from the the muslim world and in the middle east and again i want to get away from appearing to be partisan in this  issue we've had a latin american policy that historically has supported our commercial interests you know and we've supported you know overthrows  is democratic and republican administration so moses i mean the wife adel castro for the castro came because of you know his predecessor who  certainly could not be described as a democrat penis yet you know look at look at look at central america and they have a memory and they have a memory so these are lessons to be learned just as a result the what happened you know during the the eight years of the bush administration diesel lessons to be carried on into the carried on into the future in terms of a continuing reminder if you will as i think you've all said there are consequences upon consequences and some are unforeseen and some we just have to accept but at least let's be sensitive and let's be aware of those those confident i mean and some of that consequence taking back my time some of it has to deal with what we're talking about also because you definitely have to put it in the context of of cold war and what our policy is then and now what i call the post nine eleven syndrome because also what you have with the president has engaged in latin america a lot of that has to deal with military aid as opposed to humanitarian aid and it also has to deal with this is what we're telling you you need to do as opposed to listening to them to say this is what we need so it's more of us telling folks this is what you need to do as opposed to listening to say ok now i hear you and he is how we're going to try to help even as these governments are beginning to turn democracy to spending one point three billion dollars annually to egypt for military assistance what message that we like the gentleman and you know since we're it you're the chairman that's a democracy ok that's the kind of democracy i like our one hand one man all about but all these issues too about again the disparity between our values and what we do mexicans a collaborative effort in terms of drug interdiction and violence some aspects of the program i like some i have serious questions about but this is you know a day or two ago in the new york times conditions and u s aid in drug fight anger mexico a chorus of similar protests went up this week at least in terms of the committee and in terms of the house who called the bill's insulting and reeking of yankee arrogance some put some pointed out the united states had no room to talk this is about conditions for human rights on this legislation given the detention facility at guantanamo bay cuba it provides a does or resent when there i mean in very real terms whether this collaborative effort that the bush administration has worked to develop argue that our choices for our foreign policy create a resentment that created resentment flow from several cultural political predispositions in our country how would you propose that we change these predispositions well that's is a big topic but what i've been suggesting today is that we examine what our what our global challenges are going forward in the next cup decades to the extent that one can anticipate them and among those i think are are the  i'm sorry that congressman rohrabacher has departed but will among them is the climate change issue or an environmental sustainability issue which i think is exceptionally important perhaps the most important because it affects it affects everything it doesn't just affect the sea levels it affects for example what we're seeing now throughout much of the world is this food crisis which you know when oil prices go up and all prices have gone up in part because of the war in iraq when oil prices go up it also affects everything everything else that oil is dependent on and so we complain a lot about our four dollar a gallon gas but you can imagine what the effects are in the developing world and they don't have many alternatives in the short term to paying those prices and when they do have to pay those prices it means a tremendous economic which now has included a crisis in food availability it's a complex argument but there's definitely a relationship so you know it's not just about need to change our attitudes about energy not just because of our deployments military deployments in the middle east but because this is the new reality that we face globally and if we don't take care of these issues to the extent that we can it has tremendous reverberations for everyone in the world and among those facts of course is a kind of growing resentment of the united states as a leading these challenges seriously then it does create resentments which have a rebound effect so that's just one element that i would point to is the our capacity our willingness our application of ingenuity and our revisiting our values about consumption about our sense of entitlement to world's resources and so  we know that i would knowledge of the world today is fed to us by a press whose reporters say that the owners of the press ought of them to say we naively assume that what we read in our press is the whole truth when a little reflection would convince us that we have in america no complete picture of what is transpiring my question would be would you say that the core of the problem remains the same or has the united states done a better job in the era of electronic media and broader school choices of having a real debate and a broad education about our role in the world thank you congressman  does hit on a very important point which is the role of education and exchange indeed i would say with the spread of communications do have opportunities for greater knowledge of the world but as all of us here are professors we  all need primary sources and primary experiences and that means not just reading about an event but actually experiencing the event so i think it's also important that we continue to facilitate opportunities for americans to learn about the world around them whether through travel or exchanges other opportunities to learn about very different societies which have an impact on our own national security this morning talking about the importance of understanding is a wide variety of cultural experiences that americans have a chance to do that we can help facilitate international dialogue and similarly as the report notes often people from around the world when they have a chance to understand the nature of debate and dialogue miss country often have a better understanding of our foreign policies and a higher opinion of the united states also because it had a chance to come to this country ways that we have to facilitate that direct knowledge are very important that can happen over the internet but also need to happen in person so i think there are avenues to try to keep open the dialogue and spreading knowledge and understanding which is so important as we look at these complex issues in the world internationally thank you just very briefly on this very important  their information from the mainstream media and that does remain very one sided and has its own biases now we should keep in mind that other nations have their own biases in the lead up to in the fall of two thousand and two i was living in  cairo and their media was lambasted in the debate about whether or not to invade iraq and they were very very critical and and i remember leaving egypt and then coming to the u s and watching the complete opposite of the debate and we see a b c talking about this tyrant out there who's threatening us and now it's like wow these are two very different realities and these societies obviously are not communicating and i and i realize that nothing good is going to come just four or five years ago of third one third of the members of the united states house of representatives didn't want to pass for a meeting they never left this country to see what is taking place anywhere else to understand anybody else's culture anybody else's way of living and everything was just predicated on the decision that we make right here in this vacuum and then at the same time many of the individual that are within the media for those members who do travel often criticized for traveling to see and understand and learn what's going on in other parts of the world because you see i have noticed that i have gotten to travel more often than others come to different conclusions when they get to see different parts of the world that is part as i travel and i talk to other individuals they say why don't more americans come why are not more members of the united states congress coming and when they don't see us coming that also gives the perception to them that we feel we're supposed to because we don't come we don't look we don't want to but yet we want to tell venue to discuss a whole array of issues but the focus being the the bilateral agreement between iraq and the united  states that's being discussed at least between the white house and some members of the iraqi government it was very informative and very interesting and that's why these parliamentary exchanges are so important because i got to tell you i think it expanded their understanding and i our understanding what what was involved here and what was was a mage are these are two members but they represent a majority of iraqi parliamentarians and here we are talking not even near each other at past each other without having just wish you know we were in school that i can we can make it mandatory reading for every member of congress i think that would help us i would help us and i was standing in this world this globe is so much smaller now that it used to be importance of communication on issues in full measure are important today not just understanding how with you and not you know that i'd be interested in and i'm not going to hold you up it's twelve thirty but if you have some ideas and you want to jot and out if you want to come back again we'll welcome yes i think it's really important that we get it right in terms of communicating in full measure so that there's we're dealing at least with the basis of understanding and agreement at least on some facts and  some realities otherwise you just have this exchange of opinions which i mean you can get that on you know just turn on c n n or fox or whatever and you can get you can get that at any time and i don't know really how fruitful it is we're going to be filing legislation which if it passed would allow for thirty thousand students in the future from all the seats to come here on full scholarship and not just get knowledge big get as you were saying dr brown the experience itself of being here because i think we all understand that at least i'm confident that if they really had the experience of this country then they will respect the united states our values our people and our dissent and i just agreement