Transcripts For CSPAN3 Countering Violent Extremism 20180123

Talked about strengthening kplu community resilience. This took place in Southern California. Its about an hour 20 minutes. Good afternoon. And welcome to the first monday, actually the first monday working in january. This is it a partnership of three organizations. My name is adam powell. I am the director of washington operations of the university of Southern California center for communication leadership and policy. And also president of the Public Diplomacy counsel. Those are two of the partners in these monthly events. The third is the Public Diplomacy alumni situation and plea pleased to have that president here. Its my pleasure to welcome you. And highlight three events. Office of the historian of the department of state is putting out the volume on the Foreign Relations of the United States, the documents Public Diplomacy from 1961 to 1963, which is the kennedy period when many of us date back to. They are going to be releasing it at decor house, 20 at the door, but you do have to sign up in advance. And i think it will be a very interesting exploration of Public Diplomacy. Secondly one of the things they do is provide awards fort current great Public Diplomacy work that department of state Public Diplomacy officers are doing. We give the awards in may. And we are beginning to request nominations through the state department over the next month or so. And i would ask any of you with contacts right now in the field to encourage them to nominate their people doing good work for that award. And if any of you who are members or would like to consider being members of pda would contribute to the award fund, you are more than welcome. Thirdly, on february 12th at noon we will have our Lunch Program over at decor house called democracy and human rights and diplomacy. And we look forward to as many of you as possible coming. You would get full information if you were nems in our newsletter which will be arriving on your doorstep january 22. Also digitally. So thanks very much. Thanks, cynthia. And we have a Fourth Organization which has been essential these six years of these programs. And that is the American Foreign service association, which has graciously hosted these events for six years. But today cities combatting violent extremism. Our speaker has held a number of position ns the state department and school teacher, contributed articles to newspapers, and he is someone who holds three advanced degrees. He has one from Johns Hopkins in international relations. He has one from Northwestern School in journalism. And one from the university of Southern California in Public Diplomacy. So mike did you hauff in, the f yours. Thanks so much. [ applause ] [ inaudible ] there is a price to pay with that education. I want to thank adam and Public Diplomacy council to inviting me to speak today and thank you for showing up. I know the weather has warmed up. Can you hear me now . No. No . Should i it helps if the mic is turned on. Can you hear me now . Yes. All right. Thank you so much for coming. I know the weather warmed up a little bit but obviously its still pretty cold. I would like to thank adam and the Public Diplomacy council for inviting me to speak and thank you for being here. We have la Diverse Group of people in the audience so ill try to keep the jargon and acronyms to a minimum. But if there is anything that needs clarification, please let me know. And obviously well have a q a session at the end. If for some reason you dont have a clans to ahance to ask m question, look me up on twitter and i can respond there as well. I want to begin by talking about the last couple of years in terms of countering violent extremism. We have seen a disturbing up tick in the number of mass casualty incidents in cities. Many has been perpetrated by isis and supporters. Prior to november 2015, isis was urging supporters to come to the socalled caliphate in syria and iraq. Tens of thousands of men and women answer that call, but now they ask them to commit acts in their own communities using whatever means necessary. The attacks is meant to show the diversity of the eye adviisis. Some use firearms and knives and other use vehicles to kill and injury dozens of people. At the state department, we are both proactive in defeating isis. We train Law Enforcement in how to detect terrorist plots. This is what we refer to as ct. We often say we cannot arrest our way out of the problem. Which is why countering violet extremism is so important. Cve is umbrella term for range of activities focused on prevention, intervention, and rehabilitation, reintegration. Youll hear some people building against violent extremism. The focus here is the actual activities directed towards countering isis and other groups. There are four basic principles of cbe efforts italy. First efforts internationally. First achieve the goals. Second we need to encourage the various branches of government to work together. The ministry of health and education is critical partners in this effort. We also need to encourage governments to partner with Civil Society which requires a considerable amount of trust. Third, we need stakeholders to share practices, good practices with each other. We say good not best practices, because certainly no one has found a way to absolutely counter prevent violent extremism. While every community is unique, there is a lot someone in lebanon can learn from someone in montreal and viceversa. Also need the good practices insurance stewalized so when the Editor Community leader takes a different position when they move on, we need someone who can take their place and pick up where they left off. Lastly, we need to bring more stakeholders into the fold. At the most greenain u lar effo we need to fight against it. We need coaches, council loriord religious leaders to get involved. If its training an at risk individual later on they will resist a recruitment pitch of a terrorist organization. One way we try to do is Strong Cities. Created in 2015 network started with 25 members and now has 125. Its first Global Network for cities focused on countering violent he can tremmism. Not only members face the threat from isis. Some from the far right and some threats from the far left. There are currently 10 u. S. Members of the Strong Cities network. Members connect online and in person through workshops. In annual global meetings and exchanges. United states and several other governments support it and run through the london based institute for Strategic Dialogue. The networks policies are determined by the 26 members steering committee. In addition to our direct support of sen, my office works closely with the state Departments International Leadership Program to to support in the network. In march 2016 inaugural sen members to the United States for three weeks. Such exchanges help expose Exchange Visitors to good practices in the u. S. , and they also help spread awareness about scn among cities. Because scn has multiple events around the world there are numerous opportunities for members of the multi country exchanges to interact. Its essentially built in alumni network. In fact five originally members keep in touch on facebook and have collaborated with each other on their work. In may 2016, anatolia and turkey hosted the meeting. About 240 people from 20 countries attended this event which highlighted diversity of the network. We had speakers there talking about july 2015 attack that killed five military members at recruiting station in chat a noog a. We had a mayor talk about his experience about being abducted from bow cowhoran. We also had people talking about other topics. A year later hosted second and youll. This time 500 people from 50 countries attended. We had mayor, and los angeles deputy, and delegations from las vegas, louisville and san diego in attendance. To the right, right over here, we have the mayor hans ill talk about him a little bit in the slide. Its a city just north of brussels in belgium id like to talk about our City Pair Program which has been around since 2011. Partnership between the state department and Homeland Security office of civil rights and liberties. This two way Exchange Program connected about 20 countries around the world. International cities first, then we work with dhs to identify, excuse me, and we work with dhs to identify the appropriate u. S. Partner city. We try to identify cities with complimentary skill sets and those express interest in maintaining connections beyond the exchange. These cities arent necessarily part of the Strong Cities network. Although some of them are, and we certainly those who are not we encourage them to join. One point i want to mention is when people think of cities to partner with international cities, the first one may be like los angeles or minneapolis, the problem is when you have delegations going to the same city, thats taxing on their schedules. We want connections that people who have the time, the capacity to engage their International Counterparts. So lets say today we Exchange Business cards. We want connections where when we introduce them to their u. S. Counterparts, they have the ability and interest in following up and forming partnerships that as you know require a lot of time and effort. Each delegation has five to nine people and has someone from mayor office, and religious leader and representatives from society. One delegation will spend about a week in the other city meeting with the range of stakeholders and a few months later the two cities will trade roles. Its hard to quantify the success of the program, but in one instance we can. In 2014 state and dhs partnered with columbus ohio. They once had the highest per capita number of people departing from their city to syria and iraq. After updating their Community Engagement strategy following the exchange, the departure suddenly stopped. We recognize that there are multiple factors involved. But we have heard from several cities how these exchanges have helped. They eventually joined scn and now speaks with mayors around the world. One thing i want to note about the exchange, its a relatively small municipality, we were able to bring the mayor and police chief, they were able to participate in this exchange. Obviously, earlier this year we did an exchange between london, excuse me last year we did an exchange between london and launlos angeles, it was not feasible to ask the may ors to participate in that exchange. But we were able to get the deputy may tear mayor of los angeles and value to do smaller cities. These exchanges may have more of an impact. And its not to say they dont have impact with larger cities. In december 2016, we partnered with orlando and tampa. We actually had this exchange planned well before the pulse nightclub attack. There was nothing that we knew about a threat there. It just so happened that they were very good at Community Engagement and that was something that we wanted to highlight with the delegation from marseille. With this one we arranged meeting which complemented with workers on the ground. This also allows us to put us on the radar who can champion this issue better than i can. And one thing i do want to note about mayor, hes been very gener generous with his time. We had someone come from canada and had a meeting scheduled with the Mayors Office and he decided when he saw that this group was in, he decided to meet with them and spoke to them for about an hour. So for a mayor of major u. S. City, thats extraordinarily that commitment to this issue. This past december we brought someone from manchester, both cities have experienced major terrorist attacks. Manchester wanted to hear about boston their resill taience bom. Some have never worked together so they developed new programming for boston efforts to engage at risk youth. I was there. We visited a gymnasium that trains people to become personal trainers, and mentoring component to that so that was one example that the delegation from manchester really excited about the program and not to say they are necessarily going to develop a program exactly like that, but they were inspired by that. And then as we speak, adele gauges from boston is traveling to manchester for the second half of that exchange. Adele gauges. In april, we brought members to the u. S. These two countries have had the highest number of capita depart for syria and iraq. Western balkins also account for onethird of the membership. This exchange exposed them to good practices in the u. S. And also helped them connect to each other. We chose to send this delegation to tennessee and georgia to learn about integration in the civil rights movement. Met with the mayors in these cities and visitsed atlanta. One thing i would like to point out, rather obvious, but cities are not necessarily comparable to their large cities are not comparable to our large cities. So it didnt make sense smaller countries to go to big cities. N not to say that atlanta is not ha small city, but chat noog ha, they did have the opportunity to sit down, meet with the mayor, the police chief, everybody who is involved in the attack from two years ago. That was extraordinarily for this group and quite inspiring for them. Some of the members of the delegation, one has become a member of parliament. One is the National Coordinator for coso var. And one is minister of culture and sports. So weve also had some nice returns in terms of deliverables from that exchange. Id like to talk about the next steps. A few of the things that we are planning in the future. U. S. Conference of mayors. On january 24th, the state department is hosting a workshop for dough please particulmestic countries. We are going to expect about 40 to 50 mayors. This has been part of an ongoing relationship weve had with u. S. Conference of mayors. Ive attended. They meet twice a year. The one forum for all u. S. Mayors to get together, talk about cross cutting policy issues, and to network. And so when ive attended, im looking for cities that would be interested in hosting delegations. Ones that we work with, bureau of educational and Cultural Affairs on, identifying cities that would be good partners for the city peer program. And then hopefully, and we started doing this a little bit, sending u. S. Mayors overseas. A lot of u. S. Cities focus on international trade, foreign direct investment, but listening to mayors talk about their policy priorities it helps to identify opportunities for them to, if they have a program that they are trying to champion, well, you know, they are very open to sharing that internationally. And ill give you one example. Anaheim mayor tom tate, ive been speaking to him for last two years in the Conference Meeting in indianapolis june 2016. I learned about his city of kindness initiative. I didnt realize when i started talking to him that hes really good friends with the dalai lama and received support from lady gag a too. And when i asked him to travel to denmark for this meeting, part of my pitch to him was, hey, this an initiative a lot of other cities in other countries would be interested in it. The mayor of nashville when we brought the delegation there, the mayor has initiative called office of new americans where they help integrate newly arrived immigrants into society. So that was what helped us set up that meeting. So its just to say that listening to mayors and their priorities is critical for these partnerships. Next month we are having the mayors of louisville and anaheim to engage with india counterparts on the Strong Cities network. Right now we only have one member in india, mumbai, so hope to increase membership and get cities there more active on i would say more broader what we would call relevant. So theyll visit there. Mayor tate, he was so impressed at what he saw at the pleating last may, that he wants to launch a year long campaign. The Strong Cities network on kindness. And one thing ill note about this, not all cities violent extremism isnt a major concern for all cities. Granted there are attacks in places where its quite surprising like the town really small town in texas a couple months ago. But that being said, mayors are not going to allocate huge amounts of resources just because its the topic of the day or whatever. So its just to say that by investing or getting mayors to invest in social cohesion, kind of a no your neighbor kind of initiative, that is something that some cities can buy into. And you know its not going to upset advocacy groups or whatever. But thats just to say that this delegation its really important for us because its sending these high level mayors in priority country for us. So please follow twitter and ill update you guys on the progress of that. Next id like to talk to you about the south by southwest festival. This is it also partnership that developed from us engaging u. S. Conference of mayors. So we have two panels. One is local leadership in the wake of terror. That will feature the mayors of cities. Then im going to moderate a panel local efforts to counter violent extremism which will feature domestic Civil Society partners. And this is just to say, i mentioned chattanooga a couple of times, so hes also travelled to the netherlands to engage in Speaker Program for us. So we certainly when we find mayors or cities that are willing to engage, we engage them as much as we can. We dont want to overuse those connections. And, you know, i think sometimes mayors, they get hammered in the press by their opponents to say they are traveling on internation international junken. A i can tell you with the mayors, they stayed in a hotel not up to par with anyone in this room as well as major cities. It took them 24 hours travel time to get there. So its just to say if we ask them once, you know, we have to really think about asking them twice. And we have to make sure that that experience is good for them so that theyll recommend these programs to other mayors. Because we really do want to send u. S. Mayors out there to develop connections between cities. Our role, the state Department Role is to facilitate that connection. Once that connection is established we can back away and certainly we dont want to play a large role in this. We want to coordinate. So this concludes the formal component of my presentation. Again, id like to thank the Public Diplomacy council for opportunity to speak with you. And im happy to answer any and all of your questions. Thank you so much. [ applause ] thank you. I see one hand up already. You have the first question. Thank you, adam. Thank you for your presentation. The Trump Administration has been almost vehemently antimuslim and immigration. Im wondering what the fact is in getting this going around the country . So we are the state department. Its hard for me to talk necessarily about it hasnt come up in your discussions . Its something thats i would just say that, you know, the mayors that we talk with, domestically and internationally, you know, they are looking i think that they recognize, you know, they recognize our role, the state departments, and its just to say that its just an issue that, you know, i think we talk on a more minute level, more of a working level about issues. And for some people its not a concern. And when people have concerns, we note them. And its just to say that, you know, for us, our programs, they are focused on the tactic, the ideology, and not kebticonnecti necessarily to the muslims or islam. So i would say for us, i think that any conversation we have regardless of what one person or another says, you know, there are challenges. And we try and work through them. Thank you very much for a very interesting presentation. I have to say i never knew anything about the Strong Cities network before. But im just wondering how your bureau and also this particular how it intersects if it does with the Global Engagement center at the state department which also, of course, is focused both on countering terrorism but specifically countering violent extremism. Thank you. Thank you. We work closely with the Global Engagement center and they have actually helped us with funding some of our activities, you know. Its just something we are all one happy family and the resources that we get dont necessarily cover, you know, they dont necessarily meet the demand for programming. Trying to speak plainly as i can. We dont have all the money in the Counter Terrorism bureau, believe it or not, so for certain activities, we will go to the undersecretary for Public Diplomacy, as you are familiar with, to fund, for example, the mayoral delegation to india. That is something they are funding. They are funding bringing the mayors from canada, germany, ireland and the uk, and so i think that, you know, we definitely do work with them and you know, we definitely do work with them. Sherri mueller, school of International Service at au. Wanted to ask you, what is the extent your work with the Strong Cities network relates to the Sister Cities International network, other mayoral networks such as the one that focuses on hiroshima and the antinuclear set of mayors that are very concerned, i think there are 250 of them. How do you interact with these already existing programs . The Strong Cities network is not meant to compete with any existing network, so in many cases we look for ways to complement each other and obviously, as i mentioned before, the institute for Strategic Dialogue, they are the implementers. They run the Strong Cities network. So they are concerned about keeping the lights on in their organization, but in terms of connectivity, we definitely look for those opportunities. When we are trying to partner an International City with a u. S. City in terms of the City Pair Program, if they are already sister cities, then thats a bonus. But its just to say that, you know, the network, i think it succeeds because its not trying to take the place of any other network and you know, we encourage the institute for Strategic Dialogue to be friendly with any and all other networks out there. Mike anderson, retired Foreign Service officer. Is your model applicable to other global problems and if so, is state using your model to attack other global issues . Im thinking particularly of the Climate Change issue. I have read a lot, Many American cities and governors and mayors seem interested in that issue and i wonder if they are partnering at all with counterpart cities through state and if so, is there a possibility of fatigue in terms of foreign cities, especially, being asked to partner with state on problem x, y or z . Do you see that . I think that we didnt invent the twoway exchange, the twinning program. I honestly dont know who, you know, started such, you know, partnerships but its just to say that the model can be used for multiple, multiple, you know, policy priorities and certainly, the connections and i will just say this, when we are sending a mayor from the United States overseas and you know, in most of the places where were sending these mayors, they dont have direct connections with the u. S. And you know, its a long travel time, and so what we try and sell them on is, you know, you certainly are going to travel, if we are paying for it, you are going to discuss our policy priorities, whatever their opinions are of them, but if it leads to further connections or discussion of, you know, other topics, by all means. And you know, when we are bringing the International Mayors to the United States for the u. S. Conference of mayors winter meeting, they have an entire day on their schedule of networking with other mayors. So i would just say that thats a bonus, and thats a good way, thats an incentive for us to engage mayors because, you know, i will give you one example. With denmark, if you havent worked on countering violent extremism, you probably have not heard of the city. Its a lovely city, i have been there twice, by the way, but its just to say that because of their great work engaging atrisk, you know, their atrisk population, they have created an International Reputation and so i think that that opens the door for further conversation on other issues. Im a retired Foreign Service officer. Im just wondering, when you are tr trying to identify people to talk to in foreign cities, foreign countries, or when you are going through the embassy, what office within the embassy do you work with . Do you work with Public Affairs or do you work with the political section or who are the people that are your liaisons with the people on the ground . Mostly because its Public Diplomacy program, i will note that me, im not i dont have im a Foreign Affairs officer, so but initiatives like the Strong Cities network, like the City Pair Program, as you are listening to me talk about them, its obvious theres a nexus with Public Diplomacy and thats just to say our programs are both with the Public Affairs section and the political section, and thats just to say that when we talk about a whole of government and whole of society approach, we need a whole of washington and a whole of embassy approach. So when its a small embassy, thats easier to do because the people are typically, as you know, close to each other and in other cases, like you probably know like in bangladesh, the Public Affairs section and the political section are in completely different buildings over a mile apart. So its just to say that we try and coordinate with everybody and the one thing that i would like to do with future exchanges, its secure some funding so that when the participants return home, every time theres an exchange, people come back with ideas and to have a little bit of funding to provide them to see funding for some of these initiatives but thats not to say that this is, you know, theres definitely room for improvement on these programs. My question dovetails on what you just said there. In terms of that followup and what i call the drop in the bucket effect of exchanges where you have one or two participants from a country or city, how much effect do they have on the rest of the population, and you mention that in some cases like through facebook they kept in touch and continued to collaborate on projects. Do you have any sense as to what those projects or policies might be . How are they taking the information they actually learn from these exchanges and implementing that at home to have a wider effect . Well, in one case, in the case of france and belgium with exchanges when we have had people from both countries, when theres, you know, the distant isnt too great, they are actually traveling to the other persons city and helping them kind of assess their issues of what they can do. I can tell you this, that of the groups i mentioned that we engage, whether its, you know, an educator or religious leader or lets Say Mental Health professional, counselor, religious leaders arent necessarily experts on counseling, and counselors arent necessarily experts in, you know, religious doctrine, and so when we can put people who havent been in a room together on a one week to three week trip, you know, not to say they necessarily become best friends but they definitely know, you know, know each other better and its just to say that we have had people who have really cde is an issue where if a city has one coordinator, theyre lucky. Los angeles has a cde coordinator but that doesnt mean anaheim has one or, you know, lets say seattle so these individuals when they connect with people from other cities, then they are able to console each other, to, you know, provide mentorship or, you know, partnership, so i think that thats one of the values of the Strong Cities network. So, you know, yeah, its great when we can connect mayors but really, its the working level people who are working on these issues and theres no one else in the building who, you know, knows what theyre dealing with, knows how to, you know, we like to talk about metrics, how do we know, that was your question, how do we know what we are funding is actually working. I think its important for them to connect and you know, they have and i would also say that, you know, i definitely dont want to take the credit for everything that i presented on. We work closely with dhs, we work with the Global Engagement center, we work with our emba y embassi embassies. Its critical that our embassies identify the right people. So not to say that i have seen a bad exchange, but i have seen some really good exchanges and its because they were able to recruit dynamic people. So you know, just because someone is the highest ranking doesnt mean theyre the best fit for that exchange. So i think you know, the embassy, having those connections, whether its through the Public Affairs or the political sections, its critical that they recruit these people and the biggest one of the Biggest Challenges we have with these exchanges, you know, we are offering a free trip to the United States, but they all cannot necessarily accept them because its really difficult to take one to three weeks off and they are scared to death of while theyre away, there is a terrorist attack or just the optics of it all. So its just to say that it requires a lot of groundwork and so when we have done manchester, boston, l. A. , london, birmingham in the uk with denver and aurora in colorado, theres a lot of Relationship Building that takes place and i think the twoway exchanges are really good for those cities that have really put in a lot of effort and then like the ivlp is like a conversation starter where, you know, you want them to build political will. The City Pair Program, they already have the will and they want to take their efforts to the next level. Mike nelson. I feel like a bit of an anomaly here because i have not worked for state department. I actually worked for cloud flair, an Internet Security firm. We protect about seven million websites from cyberattacks. I was curious how much time you and the mayors are spending talking about the web, particularly three different aspects. Some countries, theres talk of trying to censor the internet and block jihadist content. Other countries taking a smarter approach, looking at those websites and trying to understand whats going on and counter their messages. Probably the most positive response are cities and countries that are trying to build online communities and provide some of the community that is often lacking in immigrant communities and elsewhere. So im curious, are there cities you have worked with that are doing particularly interesting things in any of those areas and can you point us to them . I would just say that, you know, messaging at this point on the city level, im not going to say im not aware of it, but its just to say that its not as developed as the National Level messaging or private sector countermessaging, and you know, for us, you know, getting the mayor of anaheim and city of kindness initiative, getting a messaging campaign out, thats something that is acceptable, when you talk about oh, lets spread kindness, lets have one group from one ethnicity or, you know, one group talk to another group, thats palatable for a lot of people. When you all of a sudden Start Talking about, you know, directly countering terrorist narratives, thats quite challenging and you know, our policy is not to, you know, if you take down content, then that can reinforce some of the grievances that led people to these groups. So you know, i think that thats important that we recognize that we have to promote free speech but then also, a lot of the social media companies, they have been updating their user agreements, you know. We all have been on the various sites and you could access some nasty information, you know, by extremist groups, so i think that theres a smart way to do it while protecting civil rights and civil, you know, protect free speech. But i would say that i think that kind of the next step for the Strong Cities network, when we, as we develop strong relationships with cities, they also have really good relationships with the private sector, and you know, i, mike duffin, representative of the u. S. Government going to twitter or facebook, they may not be as receptive as a mayor or someone from the community, you know, approaching them. So its just to say that its a challenge but its something that, you know, we are trying to find the right approach. Are any of the mayors you talk to discussing the idea of isis fighters returning from the battlefield, maybe in belgium or france or places like that or does that not bubble up to your level . No, it absolutely bubbles up to my level. I mean, i will just say that the one thing that is a very challenging issue is when you have entire families who went to iraq and syria and granted, the government can arrest the male and possibly the female and send them to prison for a certain amount of time. The child hasnt necessarily committed a crime but that child is exposed to trauma which, you know, should not be left unattended. So i think that its something that, you know, there are a lot of cities that have their hands full with this issue and you know, its something that will take a long time for them to figure out what to do. I think thats why its critical that we engage Mental Health professionals, educators and others post9 11 we have had, if you see something, say something, but its important to teach, to educate people about what they are seeing and what to do about it when they see that, so what we have been doing is working with other governments on the local and National Level to develop programs in the precrime space so that if a young, lets say an 8yearold boy in whichever country, the teacher catches him or her watching isis videos, that thats not necessarily a crime, what do you do about that. So, but also the challenges in several countries, they dont have a lot of people who are trained to be Mental Health professionals and whatnot. So i will give you one example. Bangladesh, country of about 160 million people, they have less than 200 people who are fully certified Mental Health professionals. So how do we partner with them on this issue . Thats not to say we are going to ramp up the number of people certified to, you know, 5,000 or 10,000. Its more how do we train parents and coaches and all the people that i mentioned to deal with these issues, and you know, the one area that we have really found a lot of Fertile Ground with is working with parents. Because ultimately, you look at the case studies of people who have committed violent acts, what did people around them know and in some cases, people, they knew something was off but they werent able to connect the dots. So by having, by engaging parents, teaching them what to do, thats been very helpful, but you know, the number of returning foreign fighters is quite significant, so and in some cases, it impacts some communities disproportionately. Its definitely an issue thats on the minds of many mayors, but its just to say that its going to be a challenge harnessing the number of resources that are necessary. Quick followup, sounds like this is one of the areas where you are developing best practices. How do you disseminate them once you have identified positive approaches to the mayors involved and to others . Well, one example is the Strong Cities has an online hub, so we dont necessarily expect the mayor to access the website, but its important that there is one place to go where people can go to look for this information so a working level person from the city. I will also mention the global the gctf, global Counter Terrorism forum, the United States and other countries have invested in the life cycle to radicalization to violence initiative, and if you google it, i know its a mouthful but if you google it, theres a website that keeps, it constantly is updated with all the good or best practices, and so the one thing i will point out is that to join or support a terrorist organization like isis, theres all this information on the internet. So you just google isis or some key terms, you find a website or chat room, someone will engage you. There are toolkits how to commit violent acts, the magazine inspire or even a larger document like the management of savagery which teaches you how to do all of this stuff, then you have mentorship, you can connect with people online, but to Counter Terrorist groups, we do have the information out there but people dont necessarily know how to access it, and they dont have the mentorship, People Holding their hands, how do you, if you want to start heres a question. If you want to start a cbe program in your city, how do you do that. So i would just say that the cities that i would have in mind to have such programs may not be interested in them, or you know, there are some not on my radar that would be very entrusted. Its just to say that, you know, we have to explain what we are doing. The Strong Cities network, its designed to counter all forms of violent extremism. In the bylaws it outlines that were not targeting one religion, one ethnic group, and so i think that thats a major concern. If a mayor of whichever city says i want to join the Strong Cities network, they have a press release and all of a sudden, there are Community Groups that then they have a right to be concerned but its just to say that its important that whenever we have conversations about what we want to do, that we walk people through it and explain that were not trying to discriminate, were not trying to target. The first amendment, as you know, the establishment clause does not allow us to promote one form of religion over another so i think, you know, thats all reflected in our approach. So you already touched upon the importance of health care providers, educators, religious leaders play in these efforts. I wonder how they currently engage through the network and how they can be more involved in the future. Well, if i could just talk about the practical aspect of when we have our events, melbourne, australia is hosting the next global the global meeting in may, and then los angeles will likely host it in 2019. It costs a lot of money, as you know, to travel to australia or even to los angeles, and so if the state department or another organization has some funding, we are lucky if we can bring one or two people from the city. And certainly, i mentioned the people who we brought to denmark in may, if we had unlimited funding, we could have brought 10, 15 mayors because there is definitely a lot of interest in it. Its just to say that we need a way to we need to bring in the private sector to sponsor some of this, some of these activities. We at the state department dont necessarily have to be involved. It doesnt have to necessarily, you know, if two cities want to connect on this topic and they dont want to be part of the Strong Cities network, thats fine. If theres a way for us to facilitate those connections, great. Its just to say that, you know, logistically its difficult to bring everybody on an exchange. But that being said, i think that theres a way, obviously whether its skype or google hangout or something, we do need to have forums where a larger contingency from a city can connect with, you know, International Counterparts and you know, i mentioned the western balkans ivlp we did in april. We met with a Community Called carxton, a suburb of atlanta. They have accepted somewhere around, if you google them, you will see a lot of articles all around the world about this tiny little community. Its one square mile. 10,000 people, they have accepted 40,000 refugees over the last four decades. Apparently once people, they spend a year or two, then they move somewhere nearby. But we met with everybody in the community. Not all 10,000 people, but you know, on a sunday afternoon, we had about 200 people packed in this Community Center who wanted to meet with, you know, with our Exchange Visitors. But i do think that religious leaders, you know, there are challenges engaging them and we have to find ways to work through that. We cant do without them. I have been working in east africa and i was wondering, what is the process to engage in the Strong Cities network, for instance, some of the countries in east africa have had a lot of extreme terrorist attack and threat. What is the engagement to engage with some of the cities . Would it be through Civil Society, would it be from the government and would that be done from the bureau itself or isd or the embassy . It would be good to know a little more information about the selection process. Thank you for the work you do. I have heard a lot of good things about your organization. If you do have an organization in mind that you think should work with the network, i would just say the email, or you can just go to the website Strong Cities network. Org, their email is info at Strong Cities network. Org. Introduce yourself, they will set up a Conference Call and kind of figure out what youre doing, what you want to do, whats realistic and for us, we have done workshops, we do exchanges. Besides what i talked about with bringing International Delegations to the United States, what we want to do, the next iteration of the Strong Cities network to do i dont want to call them microexchanges but there are best practices or good practices in lets say tanzania and we want to connect those people with counterparts in kenya, and believe it or not, when i was in Southern California in march, there are people who when i was talking to one municipality, they didnt know what the municipality next door was doing. Thats not something that we or dhs need to fund because they are literally right next to each other but its just to say that finding opportunities for communities to connect and to talk about these issues and you know, i would just say the network wants to engage and to connect and find areas of synergy for some of your initiatives, because i would just say that one, as i said before, its not trying to be the, you know, the only network and you know, the only way that we are going to truly defeat isis, its by developing, you know, beyond just the defeat Isis Coalition of national governments. You need to find ways for Civil Society and others to work with each other and one of the challenges, though, when we bring people to the United States, the relationship between the mayor and religious leaders, i can tell you like mayor burke, for example, he meets i would say once every three or four months with religious leaders. If he doesnt, they will let him know the next time he runs for, when he tries to get reelected. In atlanta, every park program that they do that engages youth or even more targeted atrisk youth, its funded by coca cola or some organization and you know, in other countries, Corporate Social Responsibility is not necessarily the same as it is here in the United States. So i would just say that, you know, we definitely need to connect people, we need to find ways to work with, you know, if youre being funded by the United States or another government, how your efforts can complement each other, but i would just say the major challenge is just coordination takes a lot of time and you know, certainly we could fill our entire schedules, diaries, up with coordination meetings and ultimately, we will coordinate but there wont be a lot to coordinate because were not getting anything done. Its a catch22, as you know. Jack from Albany Associates. You were talking about preventive preventing violent extremism and mentoring. Whats been your luck with groups like life after hate and others like that for building up a partnership and mentoring between domestic radicalization programs like that that do mentor people away from radicalizing and being part of a hate group and partnering that with other International Groups to do the same thing to kind of build a consensus and a mentoring platform . I have worked quite closely with the founder of life after hate. I know others who i dont think either of those individuals are currently associated with life after hate, but just in general, what you are asking about. There are a lot of good practices. We dont have to reinvent the wheel. So work countering far right white supremacist groups, work to counter gang recruitment, even like suicide prevention, alcoholics anonymous, the boys and girls club, theres a wealth of knowledge that we have. With life after hate, its this organization, its comprised of former skinheads, white supremacists, whatever you want to call them. But one of the challenges working with formers, as you know, is that a former isnt necessarily the best case manager or the best spokesperson for your cause. If they are speaking out against violence, is there a way that we can amplify their message, and the same is true of religious leaders, where they will say violence is bad and these terrorists have nothing to do with our religion. Hey, you want to partner with the u. S. Government. They may not want to. It may hurt their cause by being seen as being cozy with us. So is there a way that we can provide training or at least point them in the right direction. I think that thats why, you know, private sector charitable organizations, its important that its easy for me to stand here and say oh, companies should donate for cde causes but at the end of the day that would really be critical. With life after hate, its important that we find ways to engage with those organizations. We have sent christian and other people, we have sent them to speak all around the world, and i think that theres something about formers when they speak, im amazed that all of you showed up to hear me speak. I think its more like the free lunch. But its just to say though that you can have a subject Matter Expert and you send them overseas or you have them speak somewhere and theyre not necessarily going to fill the room but when you have someone with a compelling message, that definitely is will bring a lot of people, and when hes spoken, every time the christian talks and by the way, hes on the panel we have at the south by southwest festival, people who have stories to share, whether its them personally or a friend or relative, he always gets requests for people to help conduct an intervention. But you know, the challenge with people who have been recruited by isis, it takes a long, long time for them to fully get out of the movement and you know, they may condemn violence but their message isnt necessarily the message that we want to promote. I would also say that in terms of their recovery from christian, google him, check out his book. I highly recommend it. But hes someone who, after he left the skinhead movement, it took him a good rock bottom for him was five years. Even then, years six and seven were pretty rough. So when you hear him speak, whether its on 60 minutes or the megyn kelly show thats someone 20 years removed from the movement. Theres no formula to say you have to wait five years and two months, but i just think its a challenge. I think that we have to really consider when we are partnering with people, are we engaging too much and you know, i will mention something else. When theres a terrorist attack, there are heroes and other people who really step forward like victims and others who speak out, and if we engage them too much, how does that impact their lives and them stepping into the spotlight. So i have seen examples and i wont mention names, people who just felt like they were compelled to step forward and speak out against terrorism and you know, they were criticized in the media. They have been trolled by certain people on the internet and their businesses have been called and whatnot. Its just to say that we have to act responsibly when we engage someone and bring them into the spotlight because they may not be ready for that. Paul delaney, retired journalist. Spent most of my career with the New York Times. You mentioned coca cola and atlanta. I was wondering, atlanta had a recent election and will have, there will be a turnover in the administration. How do you negotiate now with the new administration in atlanta . Will that make a difference in your approach, are you concerned, will there be problems . I think what we are trying to do with the Strong Cities network is we want first of all, cde has knobto be a nonparn issue. Terrorism is bad. We have to do something to prevent it. That seems simple. The photo of okay. Mayor tate is a republican and mayor burke is a democrat. And so its important that we have bipartisan support. Its important that these programs, these good practices, as i mentioned before, are institutionalized because if i take another job or my boss takes another job, we want to make sure that the people that replace us are continuing the work and building on it and we dont have to start from square one. That is an absolute challenge and we have seen that. Its just to say that we constantly have to reinforce that this is not the state department the federal governments network. We support the network but other governments also support the network. We are hoping that cities can start funding these exchanges on their own and you know, as i mentioned, if the private sector can start contributing, if an airline, you know, airlines as you know and hotels are very focused on security. If they wanted to sponsor these exchanges, you know, if city officials, Law Enforcement, if they know more about ways to prevent attacks, that in the end will save them a lot of money, so its just to say that we need more people involved in these efforts. But we dont need to securitize the issue, either. Thats the one thing when we talk about engaging educators, for example, we are not all of a sudden expecting, i was a teacher and educators have a lot on their plates and classroom management is priority number one, and its just to say that you need a way to find a way for educators and Montgomery County and the work that worde, worde, has been doing is great and its just to say that you need a softer approach or a way to talk about these issues that doesnt ring alarm bells amongst students or parents. I think thats ultimately, you know, students need to talk about the issues and talk about global issues, and but definitely a change in the administration on the local level, that can be a challenge and thats why its important that we engage mayors and thats why we are bringing mayors, International Mayors to the u. S. For this january 24th workshop, because we want this to be on the radar, and we are hopefully going to establish a Strong Cities task force through the u. S. Conference of mayors because this is an issue, unfortunately, i mentioned back in september, i was asked a question about we are doing an exchange between las vegas, san bernardino, calgary and edmonton in canada. The question i was asked is why vegas, do you have a gambling problem, you know, whats the appeal. Sadly, this is an issue that mayor goodman, she expected an attack, she didnt suspect it would be a 64yearold man, you know, but its just to say that they expected a major terrorist attack and they have been trying to do a lot to engage, you know, theyre not just concerned about isis. They are concerned about sovereign citizens and you know, other groups. You said airlines have an interest. Have you approached airlines or other travel companies for comp or contributions . So not to like give away to say oh, were talking with this or that person, but we have started conversations with certain companies, organizations, and you know, the one thing, we really are going to lean heavily on the mayors and cities for those connections. We dont have the personnel to engage continuously. We are im overextended, but its just to say that chattanooga are hosting an event in october. I think we are calling it like the Strong Cities Network Summit of the americas so its focused on the western hemisphere. So u. S. Cities, canada, like the caribbean, and you know, mayor burke and his staff are reaching out to several corporations. Its just to say that we do we are going to lean heavily on the mayors for those engagements. Hopefully, the Networks Just over two years old. When i took over, we had about 37 members. Now we have about 125. We probably have a good 20 to 30 other cities that are kicking the tires on joining the network. But i think that its something that if i could report back to you in a year or two, with the progress we have made, and certainly, just like us with our foreign assistance, companies arent necessarily Walking Around with a checkbook looking to, you know, theres a long process for them to determine who they want to donate to. So we have to or the Strong Cities network has to figure out the rules and apply. So its just to say that a lot of work remains to be done. Thank you for your remarks. Miles smith from internews. We are one of the implementers in this space. What we do is try to amplify the moderate voices so theyre not drowned out by the extremist ones that often get so much of the press. Since you have a journalist background, i was wondering if media and information is part of the strategy for the network, or if you could comment more broadly on what the office does with media to engage in this subject. I will try and answer your question. I think that part of the, you know, for us, the Global Engagement center would be working, i dont want to say have the lead, but they would have a lot of responsibility in that area. I think part of it, we have to find a way to promote Critical Thinking and certainly we all have on our social media accounts, we have clicked on something we thought was legitimate news. Im not going to say that term. But its just to say how do you distinguish between a Conspiracy Theory and legitimate reporting and if you google Strong Cities network, you will find a lot of conspiracy theories. Im not going to delve into it but its just to say that what we have tried to do, our approach has been to not necessarily respond directly to those individuals who are floating or spreading this Conspiracy Theory, but to act with transparency. So you allege that the Strong Cities network is like some conspiracy to, you know, for cities or one government to hand over sovereignty to the u. S. Or excuse me, to the u. N. Or whatever, its us trying to tell, you know, first of all, were not trying to tell any cities what to do. They are invited to participate in the network and if you think that were up to something nefarious, come to one of our meetings. We dont necessarily advertise the address but if you really want to go, like here, for example, theres nothing secret about us discussing these issues. So its just to say that i think that promoting Critical Thinking and acting or transparency when possible. Obviously if you are Albany Associates and are working on a sensitive project in east africa, you are not going to necessarily say we have a training here tomorrow, but i think there are ways that we can show that what we are doing, you know, we have nothing to hide, if you will. But finding a way to promote i think finland, maybe, has been doing some really good work with promoting Critical Thinking within schools, definitely with their location in the world, they have a need to really work on this issue. But its just to say that we have to find a way to get some of these efforts into the classroom without it interfering with the curriculum, if you will. One of the principal strategies of a terrorist organization is to select targets that have a high chance of success, so let me echo adams suggestion and the suggestion i think which has been made at least implied by a number of folks around here that maybe having an accessible forum of best practices so you dont have a paradoxical effect of the secure Cities Network paradoxically making communities that arent participating at greater risk. Right. Absolutely. All the way in the back. Good afternoon. Im from the oliver bell companies. I assure you its not for the lunch because your talk is quite nourishing. Thank you. Let me ask that senator ben sasse has written a book called adults adrift and i guess you could put that synonymous to the problem of youth unemployment, underemployment, inability to launch ones life. To what extent has the youth unemployment issue been present at the forum of the strong city networ networks . Is it one of the root causes for some of this violence and if you were to put it in your own words, you said some of these cities dont necessarily think they have an extremism issue or thats not why they got into it, but if you believe in the one sense that if it aint broke, dont fix it, if you believe in the other sense then if it aint broke, break it and fix it, what are the indicators that would bring a city to a conclusion that it needed to focus on some of the root cause, and is that one of them, is i guess my real issue . So i would just say we have seen with the examples, you know, some of these cities have had a long history of suffering, experiencing terrorist attacks, but in the u. S. , for example, if you look at the three cities that have had the most fatalities in the last five years or so, san bernardino, chattanooga, orlando, those arent the cities you would have thought of post9 11 that would experience such attacks so its really hard to predict. With radicalization taking place on the internet, you know, a person could get radicalized anywhere and you know, thats going to they are not going to necessarily travel a long distance. The areas that they are familiar with are the places where they will possibly have the most success attacking, opposed to then traveling across the country and focusing on some place they are not familiar with. Employment, poverty in itself is not necessarily a driver to radicalization to violence. People have grievances, they feel like i will give you one example. I was 23 years old and i graduated from northwestern universitys journalism school, one of the top ones in the world. I expected to be at the New York Times if not like the next day, pretty soon thereafter and im not going to talk about my salary then but it was like oh, i have to live at home with my parents. So there was a grievance. Thats not to say i was on the path to radicalization to violence but there are a lot of kids around the world who have a lot of potential and when they see that theyre not able to get those jobs either because theres corruption in the government, in their national or local government, and either theyre not developing the jobs that those individuals could have or those jobs are going to other people who are connected to that government, that really can fuel the radicalization process, and so some people have speculated about like engineers, for example, why are they more susceptible to radicalization opposed to like other people. I dont know if i necessarily buy into that, but its just to say that if you are highly educated and you expect to make 70,000 a year and you are working at applebees or driving a taxi, you are kind of ticked off at the world and when someone comes in and says its because they simplify complex issues and all of a sudden, you know, life can be a lot simpler if you just join this group and with conspiracy theories and with extremist organizations, they are trying to turn things, turn gray into black and white. With all due respect to the New York Times had you gone there, the next day, you would probably not be doing this work now. Please join me in thanking our speaker. Mike duffin. [ applause ] our next program will be the first monday in february, monday, february 5th. Until then, we are adjourned. American history tv on cspan 3. This week in prime time, tonight at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, more from the American Historical Association conference with a discussion on president ial plantations and how slavery is explored at those sites. Wednesday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, historians attending the American Historical Association Conference Look at how American Veterans are being remembered, honored and memorialized since world war ii. Thursday night at 7 00 p. M. Eastern, we are live from the newseum in washington, d. C. With a discussion on the 1968 vietnam war tet offensive. And friday night at 8 00 p. M. Eastern, lincoln scholar howard holzer, author walter starr and edna green medford on abraham lincolns friends and enemies. Watch American History tv in prime time on cspan 3. The u. S. Election Assistance Commission hosted a summit with state and local officials on election System Security and other election issues. Speakers in this portion included secretaries of state from Washington State and rhode island as well as local Election Officials and technology experts. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. All right. We will go ahea