diagnosed with lung cancer. in a statement, his son scott said, quote, last weekend, my father was diagnosed with a treatable form of lung cancer during a follow-up visit for a bronchial illness. he is currently undergoing treatment and his doctors are optimistic that he will make a full recovery. as everyone can appreciate, this is a deeply personal matter for my parents and we simply ask that his privacy be respected as hi treatment continues. auroo sarah ganham is in state college for us tonight. was there any hint of this at all or is this a complete surprise? >> reporter: well, no, there was no hint of this kind of detail. joe paterno's 84 years old. he's long been speculation about health problems. he's had -- he had kind of like on intestinal bug during the last season. he's been hit a few times either on the sidelines or in practice leading to health problems like broken bones. but as far as his lung cancer news, this is completely -- really a complete shock that this was something that he was dealing with. and apparently according to his family, it was something that he just learned about over the weekend as this scandal has been unfolding. it's really been quite the week for the paterno family. >> it really has, a crushing week for them, i know. sarah, now we know that the ncaa is launching its own investigation into the penn state scandal, how penn state handled things, et cetera, et cetera. what is the implication of that? >> reporter: well, what they want to know is by december 16th, they want certain questions answered about what penn state's policies are, how they comply with ncaa policies and whether or not these rules were followed. and there's a set of questions that they've given to the university. like i said, they need to be answered by the 16th. i think that's when we'll know where we're going from here. >> thank you so much. it isn't just penn state anymore. tonight, another major university, syracuse in new york state, is doing damage control because of allegations of sex abuse. syracuse placed associate men's basketball coach bernie fine on administrative leave after accusation that is he inappropriately touched two boys more than two decades ago. fine just put out a statement saying, quote, simply put, these allegations are patently false in every aspect. the fact is these allegations have been thoroughly investigated multiple times. cnn's ed lavandera is in the university for us now. ed, what has the coach said about these allegations? >> reporter: he is standing by his longtime assistant, jim boeheim, he's been here for more than three decades. as one student put it to us today, jim boeheim is to syracuse what joe paterno is to penn state. he is vehemently defending his assistant coach. this coming in the wake of the allegations that two former ball boys for the syracuse basketball team told espn, you could hear from one of them, one of the men who is now 39 years old, bobby davis, described to espn the interactions that he had with the assistant coach saying that he was molested by the assistant coach hundreds of times during a period covering 16 years, between the 1980s and 1990s. >> first he would start rubbing my leg. he would sit next to me and rub my leg and gradually put his hand down my pants and try to grab my penis. and if i resisted, which i did, he would get more aggressive. >> reporter: bernie fine, the assistant coach s a highly respected, much cared for basketball coach who's been around here at syracuse for many, many decades. he also went on to say in the statement he released this afternoon saying, sadly we live in an allegation-based society and an internet age where in a matter of minutes, one's lifelong reputation can be severely damaged. i am confident that is in the past. a review of his allegations will be discredited and restore my rep pigs. i hope the latest review of these allegation will be conducted expeditiously. he's referring to when this was investigated, brought back up in 2005, it was investigated by the syracuse police department. they said the statute of limitations had run up on this and couldn't investigate it further. the university says it hired a law firm to investigate it and spent four months investigating it. couldn't find any evidence to corroborate what bobby davis was saying at the time. they're confident that bernie fine is someone who has withstood the scrutiny already and they're hoping this case will essentially go away once again. >> ed lavandera, thanks. allegations of sex abuse first at penn state, now at syracuse, no doubt have parents asking about their own children's safety. here to talk about the warning signs and the scandals, marc klaas, his daughter polly was kidnapped and murdered in 1993. and also joining us is a child and adolescent psychologist. one of the things about the situation, he says, we've looked at all this, there was no sub stan -- substantiation of it. that they're looking for money. is it true and do you see an increase in the number of people that come forward at a time when this issue is so much in the news? >> well, sure, because what happens is awareness is raised. that having been said, the numbers of sexual abuse accusations have gone down tremendously since 1993. but, sure, this brings things to the forefront and certain victims show courage in coming forth and talking about things that have been done to them. and that empowers other people that have gone through similar circumstances to take a similar stand. >> dr. sophie, i know that you are in this business, as it were, and certainly know about -- a lot about allegations. is there any way to tell -- i mean, what is the defining moment when you have a "he said, he said"? it seems you do run up against -- it's not true in the penn state allegations where they have a witness that testified before the grand jury, but certainly at penn state, we're now dealing with a "he said, he said" of a now grown adult. how difficult is that to get to the truth? >> it's often very difficult to get to the truth because at a certain point in their life, they were a 10-year-old child and how and what they perceived may be very different now. as they evolved and grow, like was said earlier, maybe they are at a point where they feel more courage, they feel safer, they've been able to resolve within themselves the guilt and the shame and now they want to do something to protect others and feel that they're even protecting themselves. it does have to be a general belief of where that person is. also looking at how their life has been up to this point, have they been a pretty solid citizen, are they a stable person? that gives credibility to who they are and their allegations of today. >> marc, is there any telltale sign that you know of of someone who is a danger to one's child? it seems to me that in the end, the most that a parent can do is certainly be watchful and when something strikes you as wrong, it probably is. but is this more a matter of children speaking to their -- parents speaking to their children about what the danger is or are there telltale signs of bad situations? >> well, certainly the best thing you can do is make sure that your children understand you unconditionally love them and that they can come to you with absolutely anything that is bothering them or threatening their safety. that having been said, sure, there are telltale signs. if an adult spends an inordinate amount of time with children, if they are too good to be true in your life. if they come and they want to ba babysit your kids all the time, they want to take them on unsupervised trips, they want to lavish them with gifts, there's probably something wrong with that. if an adult has a special child friend that changes from time to time, that's another red flag. if you observe any of this kind of aberrant or abnormal behavior, then you definitely need to pay attention to it and take advantage of the tools that are out there. search the megan's law website. find out if this individual does have a past history. >> doctor, we've been told that young children don't offer this information in a lie. in fact, mostly we've come to believe that children will tell the truth. but what about an adult that comes back 25, 30, 35, 40 and says, this happened to me? is there a -- do we also naturally think, no one comes forward with this if it's not true? >> no, i think absolutely you have to take what someone is saying, listen to it, look at the bigger context of who they are as a person, how they live their lives and were those allegations a possibility back at that point in their life? did they have that experience? were they at that camp? did that adult really spend that much time with them to be able to see, are you able to support a lot of those logistical kinds of things and then see, is that somebody who is a solid person that really hasn't had any problem in their life and usually does tell the truth? most likely then at that point, they have worked themselves to an emotional place that they are now safe to come forward and not feel bad about what they need to tell us. >> i need a quick answer from both of you. if you had a young child right now, would you send them off to camp, football or otherwise, because i think that's a question a lot of parents are asking themselves tonight? first quickly to you, doctor. >> i would say, you know what, mom and dad, go check out that camp and follow your gut. >> marc klaas? >> well, you know, president clinton signed the volunteers for children act that allows institutions to run background checks on individuals who have unsupervised access to children. if they followed those strictures, i think you're probably in a good place. >> thanks so much to both of you. we appreciate it. next, troubling revelations that hackers may have staged a dangerous new cyberattack using computers in russia. feel the power my young friend. mmm! 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[ male announcer ] the new htc vivid. stay a step ahead with at&t 4g lte, with speeds up to 10x faster than 3g. ♪ at bank of america, we're lending and investing in communities across the country, from helping to revitalize a neighborhood in brooklyn to financing industries that are creating jobs in boston or providing funding for the expansion of a local business serving a diverse seattle community and supporting training programs for tomorrow's workforce in los angeles. because the more we can do in local neighborhoods and communities, the more we can help make opportunity possible. one of the greatest fears about terrorism may be a reality tonight. a cyber attack on a vital public utility. federal investigators confirmed they are gathering information on whether hackers, possibly from russia, are to blame for a breakdown at a public water system in illinois. here's cnn's brian todd. >> reporter: it's been unheard of inside the u.s., hackers compromising infrastructure. now federal officials confirm they're investigating whether a cyber attack may have led to the failure of a water pump at a public water system in the springfield, illinois, area earlier this month. a local official discussed the incident. >> there's some indication that there was a breach of some sort into a software program. >> reporter: cyber security expert joe weiss disclosed the possible hagging on his blog after he obtained a government report from the state of illinois's terrorism and intelligence center. we asked weiss what the report said about the incident when he says hackers breached the so-called scata system, the tech controls of water pump machines. >> when the scata system was showing abnormal problems, they called in an i.t. company to check out the computer. and in the process of checking out the computer, in other words, the computer logs of the computer, they found i.p. addresses that were located in russia. >> reporter: contacted by cnn, the department of homeland security said it's looking into all of this. but dhs cautions it hasn't reached any conclusions about whether the pump was damaged by hackers or something else. >> joe weiss joins us now along with mark rash who used to lead the justice department's computer crime prosecution unit. let me start with you, first, mark. when you hear this story, do you automatically go to hacking? >> well, that's the first thing you're going to look at, especially when you have this indication that there's been these i.p. addresses or these attacks from a particular address coming from russia. what you start looking at is, did these come from an attack and did these come from a foreign government or a foreign country? >> joe, how is it -- we now know that the feds are looking into this. you were the first actually to report it on your blog, as i understand it. what is the lesson here? what do i take away from this? what should viewers take away from this? >> well, the first thing is that these systems are systems that really weren't designed for security. and they also don't have the conventional logging that a traditional i.t. system would have. so one of the first things to take away from this is that it can take a long time and you can only, if you will, unintentionally stumble on to the fact that there are people trying to hack into these. one of the things that came out is there were problems with this system for two to three months before they found it. >> and so we do know that joe has been a frequent critic of homeland security. we're talking about water supply in the u.s., electricity, any number of things. is the fear real? is the system as vulnerable as it sounds? and what's, then, the real threat, that someone could literally stop the water supply in the u.s.? >> there's no doubt that there are a lot of vulnerabilities in these so-called scata systems. the scata systems are what control things like water, power, utilities. they were never designed to be networked together. but for convenience, we networked them together without fixing them. we definitely have to address that issue and we are addressing the issue in the country but we're not addressing it fast enough or as thoroughly enough. the real harm here is that if somebody can take over a scata system, they can cause a lot of physical damage, which is hard to do in cyberspace. shut down water plants and electropower grids. >> joe, you think this hacking came from russia. can you go the next step with me and say, is this a practice run? is this a -- it seems to me, there are many possibilities. somebody kind of messing around seeing what they could do. is there a way that they know what they did, that they were able to burn out a pump by turning it on and off, or is it a practice run? >> well, i'm an engineer and i can tell you what things are -- you're asking me to speculate and i can tell you what my speculation is. >> thank you. i'll go with that. >> okay. the first point is these are a bunch of very small, small water districts. normally -- and these are also districts that would have very little security and very little logging. so my feeling is, yeah, this is probably some form of test run because they didn't want to go after bigger, if you will, more instrumented systems. but the other thing -- i was just going to say one other thing. this also strikes me as, in a sense, the rsa attack against control systems because what they did is they went to the scata vendor, software vendor, and they got the user id and passwords from the systems that this vendor provided. so this was a very targeted attack to go after very specific machines and a lot more than just one. >> and so they meant to do it. >> they meant to do it. >> let me read where the department of homeland security told cnn, quote, at this time, there is no credible, corroborated data that indicates a risk to infrastructure entities or a threat to public safety. seems to me they're playing it down. obviously that's their opinion, one hope that is they're not actually playing it down. but why would they? they don't seem to see the threat that we're talking about here. >> the investigation is in its early days. one of the problems is that they only have this one report, although there was another report today coming out of houston as well. the real harm here is not that somebody did this. it's that the systems are vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. as joe pointed out f you grab the user id and password from the manufacturer, you can go after many, many different systems. we need a better way of sharing information and a better way of encouraging the companies that have these scata systems to really lock them down and monitor them, whether you're a huge company or a small municipality. >> mark, joe, thank you so much tonight. next up, washington's deficit cutting wars, it's your money, trillions of dollars and an all-important deadline is just around the corner. congratulations. congratulations. congratulations. today, the city of charlotte can use verizon technology to inspire businesses to conserve energy and monitor costs. making communities greener... congratulations. ... and buildings as valuable to the bottom line... whoa ! ... as the people inside them. congratulations. because when you add verizon to your company, you don't just add, you multiply. ♪ discover something new... verizon. gives you the lowest plan premium in the country... so you can focus on what really matters. call humana at 1-800-808-4003. of course, neither do i. solution? 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[ male announcer ] trade commission-free for 60 days. plus get up to $600 when you open an account. on capitol hill today -- and this is going to surprise you -- it's been all talk and no results. the house of representatives failed to pass a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. members of all-powerful super committee huddled behind closed door amid growing pessimism they'll make a deal on wednesday by cutting $1.2 trillion from the deficit. ed rollins is in new york and with me in washington is paul begala and gloria borger. ed, first to you, they're not going to make this, right? is there new york pessimism as well as washington pessimism? >> i don't see any signs whatsoever. republicans don't want to raise taxes. democrats don't want to cut entitlement programs. it's where we were six months ago. i think most of them think, we'll go through an election, see where it comes out, we'll make whatever adjustments we have to so the defense and entitlements won't take the big cut. at this point, there will be a turkey on thanksgiving and a turkey in washington but it won't be a bill. >> are you both as pessimistic? >> yes. >> yes. >> then i can go on to say, what in the world -- i love this that we're going to let an election decide it. every time we have an election, we still are going to get divided government. >> right. >> it seems to me, we are now playing with, at least we were told, oh, my goodness, the world markets will go crazy, no one's going to trust washington, it will thrust us into a second recession. they don't seem to think that's going to happen. >> yeah, the debt risk is real. the debt threat is real. and there's been enough independent credible people who have looked at it. the problem i have is what i think is the false equivalency. a democrat told me, we're ready to do the hard things, meaning cut entitlements. the source said to me, the republicans won't even do the easy things. it's unpopular to cut entitlements -- >> they won't raise any revenues. >> it's a simple deal. and raising taxes on the rich is popular with the american people. cutting medicare and social is unpopular. >> we can sit here and talk politics and i'd love to. but aren't we talking about a very deep-rooted policy problem? >> it's not a policy problem at this point. it's a theology. >> darn near biblical proportions. >> it's beyond politics. at a certain point, politicians can get in a room and cut a deal. but not if it's a theological issue. you have 72 house representatives who send a letter and say, you know what, no tax increases, no way, we're not going to support any deal. then the speaker would have to go looking to democrats and just couldn't happen. >> ed, let me move you on to herman cain. the good news for herman cain is we aren't talking about sexual harassment allegations anymore. we're talking about various blunders along the way in terms of foreign policy, one was taped this week with an editorial newspaper. he seemed to not quite understand when they said, do you agree with the president about libya? he seemed to be trying to grasp in his mind what he had been told about it. today in a news conference, here's how he explained that very long pause. >> what part? do i agree with the part where we intervenes with rockets and missiles? do i agree with siding with the opposition? do i agree with saying that gadhafi should go? do i agree that they now have a country where you've got taliban and al qaeda that's going to be part of the government? >> so the basic thing is, gee, there were so many parts to the question, i didn't know exactly what it was. but he's talking about the taliban and al qaeda becoming part of the libyan government, which is not -- we don't know that to be true. >> no taliban. taliban, afghanistan. but, al qaeda, there is a fear that al qaeda could look at libya as a safe haven. >> and there's lots of weaponry that al qaeda would like to get their hands on. ed, my question is -- i spoke with former secretary of state condoleezza rice today and i asked her if foreign policy experience mattered in a president. i want you to listen to what she said. >> i would say to the candidates, yes, you don't have to know the ins and outs of foreign policy because nobody would expect that kind of exposure. but the basics of foreign policy, you can master those during the campaign and it's important for the american people to know that you care enough about these issues to do that. >> so the question is, do the american people care if herman cain or any other candidate -- and there have been others who have had some foreign policy flubs -- does it matter? >> sure, it matters. in this day and age of world crisis, economic and the middle east being in a turmoil, you've got to have some basic knowledge. you certainly don't have to be condi rice or henry kissinger. but you ought to at least have some knowledge. what herman cain has is a lot of words. he may be very bright as a businessman. but his knowledge of foreign policy is disturbing. and i think to a certain extent, even if you read a newspaper every day or "time" or watched cnn at the end of the day, you would be very knowledgeable about what's going on around the world and that's the basics. i don't think he even has the basics. >> paul, i wanted to talk about the current not-romney candidate bumbling up, and it's newt gingrich. i believe in fashion we now call that a vintage. it's a very good thing. vintage is very good in fashion and apparently in politics. the question is, does newt gingrich have so much baggage that we know about and maybe some that we don't that this is going to be another one of those flash in the pans? >> probably yes in terms of baggage, although if i worked for him, i'd be even more concerned about this desperate need he has to self-destruct. we know there's a lot of bad stuff that's happened in his career and a lot of good stuff, too. he's accomplished a lot in his life. but every story with newt ends the same way. we know how this one will end. with newt and a can of gas and a bic lighter. >> his campaign put out an eight-page document saying "answering the attacks" with subtitles such as "personal life, extramarital affair during clinton impeachment and relationship with freddie mac." they outline all the answers to the questions that democrats will be asking and other republicans. >> i have to end it there. >> i'm sure newt wrote that in five minutes having lunch today. he's a former college professor. he has a lot of knowledge. >> that's true. gloria borger, paul begala, ed rollins, we love you down here. good luck in the future. >> thank you very much. next, the latest on the suddenly reopened investigation into one of hollywood's most shocking deaths. nice, huh? 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[ chuckles ] it's amazing. ♪ [ male announcer ] this holiday, chevy's giving more. now very well qualified lessees can sign and drive a 2012 cruze ls for around $199 a month. ♪ welcome back. here's the latest news you need to know right now. late this afternoon, joe paterno's family announced the former coach has lung cancer. we want to quickly go to cnn's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. they describe this as curable lung cancer. what's the prognosis hearing that? >> i think the word that they used was treatable. and treatable doesn't mean anything medically from the doctors i've been speaking to. you can treat anything. the question is, can you treat it successfully? and lung cancer is a really hard disease to beat, candy. if you look at all white men who are diagnosed with lung cancer, only 15% are arrive five years later. and a lot of it is dependent upon how early the disease is caught. if you catch it early, then the man has a 50/50 chance of being alive five years later. if you catch it late, it's more like 4%. >> and we don't know that part about the timing of itment this is a man under enormous stress. how does that affect the totality of one's health? >> this has obviously been a terrible couple of weeks for joe paterno. they said the diagnosis came, i think, last week. stress doesn't give anyone cancer but it makes it harder to fight a disease when you're under stress because stress affects hormones, it affects your immune system. it's never a good thing to be under stress when you are trying to fight off cancer. >> elizabeth cohen, thank you. also in the news tonight, tens of thousands filled cairo's tahrir square today protesting plans for a constitution that would shield egypt's military from public oversight. a plane crash in arkansas killed four people including oklahoma state's women's basketball coach and one of his assistants. they were on a recruiting trip. tonight, los angeles authorities say actor robert wagner is not a suspect in the newly reopened investigation into the 1981 death of his wife, actress natalie wood. but a sheriff's department spokesman says there is substantial new information about what happened the night wood fell off a boat and drowned. tonight's number is only approximate but it is impressive, 17,000 hours, the estimated time tv host regis philbin has been on the air. regis ended his 23-year run in national syndication with this morning's show. erin burnett is coming up at the top of the hour. >> we are following the story of a young boy who came forward a few years ago, syracuse said they looked into it. didn't find anything. now a second man has come forward. we're talking to a man who played football up at syracuse and knew the assistant basketball coach, bernie fine, very well. known him for 25 years. he talks about who this man is and whether he thinks he could have been a pedophile. plus we have a passionate plea tonight, candy, passionate plea to the super committee. this is a really important moment. they really can make a difference. i know down in washington they're coming, it looks like, to a point where they say, we don't need to do a deal and we can get rid of these automatic triggers. but the implications for this country could be huge and great for all americans. we have that coming up, top of the hour. >> and politically the good news is they always work better under pressure and it's there. >> that's right. let's hope so. >> thanks so much. we'll see you at the top of the hour. is syria on the brink of civil war? next up, why secretary of state hillary clinton won't rule it out. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 let's talk about fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 there are atm fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and the most dreaded fees of all, hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 at charles schwab, you won't pay fees on top of fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no monthly account service fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 no hidden fees. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 and we rebate every atm fee. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 so talk to chuck tdd# 1-800-345-2550 because when it comes to talking, there is no fee. will be giving away passafree copies of the alcoholism & addiction cure. to get yours, go to ssagesmalibubook.com. secretary of state hillary clinton says syria may be headed for a civil war. she tells nbc it would pit the government of president bash ir-al assad against what she calls a very determined, well-armed and eventually well-financed opposition by syrian armed defectors. with us is a senior fellow at stanford's hoover institution and fran townsend, president bush's homeland security adviser. both join us from new york tonight. i want to talk to you because i think what is lost sometimes in this conversation, people say, oh, this is going to be a civil war, this is going to be a civil war. and most people look up and say, it's been a war now for six months, what is it? now, we started out with peaceful demonstrations but increasingly this has been one where the opposition is also armed. what are the dangers of a civil war in syria that is different from a danger when it's not in a civil war? >> well, thank you, candy. i think the question is the old question of shakespeare. what's in a name? i don't really like the expression a civil war. it's not a civil war. it's the russians who have been peddling this notion that syria may have entered a civil war. this is a popular rebellion. this is a desperate population trying to overthrow a despot, a despot who killed so far 3,500 people. that's a low estimate. who has something like 70,000 prisoners and who has wrecked his own country and tormented his own population. a civil war requires some balance of forces. this really isn't the case. this is what it is, it's a popular upheaval. >> and it's not a balance of forces. the forces at this point are on assad's sides. fran, i want to extrapolate from what was just said, which is the russians are pushing this, i would guess, because they don't want to get pressured to interfere and try to get assad to back down. if it's a civil war, then it's something you don't have to do anything about. it's sort of an internal thing. >> that's right. the pivotal fact that we now know is that there are syrian forces who have defected from the regime and begun to crumble underneath them and align themselves with the opposition. that really is an indication of the weakening of the assad regime. and i think that does make the russians very nervous. after all, they were of a standing almost alone, certainly china was with them in moving against the u.n. security council resolution that merely was acting to condemn the violence in syria. they're now worried that there could be unilateral action. they're making statements any action against the syrian regime would have to come with a u.n. resolution, which of course we know they've blocked in the past. russia has aligned themselves with the iranians on this issue and they're very far out there, away from the rest of the international community, especially the arab league, which we've seen now, take action. >> mr. ajami, russia throws out the phrase civil war to say, don't interfere in this internal thing because it fears the u.n. or the arab league, which has taken at least some diplomatic action, will do something against a regime that the russians want to have stay in place, is that correct? >> well, i think fran is right. the argument that the russians have put forward, to describe it as a civil war is to imply some kind of equivalence, violence on both sides, right on both sides. this is nothing of a civil war. i'm a child of lebanon. we know what those civil wars are like. this is, as we said before, the assad regime is on the ropes. the assad regime has tried in every way it can to suppress this noble rebellion against it. and the third largest city in syria is in open defiance and has almost really walked out of the authority of the regime. and bash ir-assad, in a way, i think his time is up. and the idea that there is an argument that could be made between them is completely untenable. >> i want to show our viewers some video. this is from syria. there was a mock trial of president assad. and you can see very anti-assad crowds in this video. take a look. [ shouting ] >> so what you're seeing -- you're seeing assad being hung in effigy. syria also says they accept what the arab league requested, that they allow observers to come in which shows that peaceful protests aren't being killed, but they are being killed. do you think he's going to let these observers in and everything is fine? >> well, i think assad will never do so. first, he's been asked to release prisoners. second he's been asked to turn the lights on in his country. he has not allowed foreign observers. he has not allowed foreign journalists. and i think the idea that somehow another cease-fire will be accepted is untenable. he's killed nearly 400 people since this arab league peace initiative went into effect. so i think all the cards of the regime are on the table. what the population has now -- they're gripped with the realism of envy. they want someone to come help them as indeed the international community and nato came to the help of the libyan population. >> fran, if he's just buying time by sort of agreeing in principle to what the arab league has asked him to do, the arab league station nations, what makes assad leave? assad leave? how does he go? where's the pressure come from that makes him leave? >> i think it's really significant. the two things that have come together is both this defection from his own forces. you know, dictators don't survive, candy, without their militaries behind them. we've seen this play itself out again and again with defections in egypt and mubarak fell. you've got that along with the pressure of the arab league. if the arab world -- remember, that was the turning point, again, in the libyan conflict, when the arab world came behind the international community to take action. this is a step along a path that if bashar al assad merely delays the arab league and they walk away from him, it really does open the path for the international community to make more action. so this is really, i think, the beginning point where we're likely to see a change and a severe weakening of the assad regime to make him go. >> fran townsend, sounds like we'll have more opportunity to talk about this. thanks so much. also, i didn't mean to say good-bye to you, because, guess what, you'll stick with us for the next segment. and up next, a taliban video surfaces, apparently showing suicide bombers preparing for a bloody attack on a luxury hotel. we'll all be right back in a second. 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[ man ] so i used mine to get a whole new perspective. ♪ [ male announcer ] write your story with the citi thankyou premier card, with no point caps, and points that don't expire. get started at thankyoucard.citi.com. ♪ a refrigerator has never been hacked. an online virus has never attacked a corkboard. ♪ give your customers the added feeling of security a printed statement or receipt provides... ...with mail. it's good for your business. ♪ and even better for your customers. ♪ for safe and secure ways to stay connected, visit usps.com/mail tonight, a rare and disturbing look at a terror group linked to the taliban. the hakani network is blamed for a brazen and deadly attack last summer in the heart of afghanistan's capital. here's cnn's nick paton walsh with a look at video that just surfaced online, showing preparations for that attack and the frightening mind-set of the suicide bombers. >> reporter: but now cnn has gain adieu technique insight into how that raid was planned. the taliban have posted online a lengthy propaganda video, they say, about the seven men behind that attack. this is a display, what they want us to see of their skills and planning. cnn can't prove it's genuine, only that it shows how sophisticated their message and media are after a decade of war. ambush somewhere else seems to let insurgents steal military uniforms. one hotel attacker speaks about his wish to die. my message is life is too short, he says. you can die of cancer or a car accident. if you want god's blessing, be a suicide attacker. the preparations are elaborate. here they sit, we think only the faces of the dead visible, in front of a model of the hotel, discussing tactics. those view machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades get on the roof and use it as a control tower so the enemy can't enter easily. then there's footage of the attack itself. in a war about perception of victory, the taliban have an increasingly sophisticated voice. >> joining us again, ajami and fran townsend. mr. ajami, are we supposed to be impressed by this. is it more important what we saw or that we're seeing it? >> well, i think it's important that we see it. in fact, what we know about this terror war is really for show and tell, in many ways. the video camera has transformed this terror trail, but this is one thing i just want to say, attached to this video. which is, in fact, the taliban and the hakani network, they are working in a very permissive environment in afghanistan. and even our ally, that hamid k, himself, agitates against the americans, and i think creates the conditions where this kind of work isn't so unusual. just yesterday or so, he gave this remarkable statement about afghanistan, and he said the lion doesn't like it if a foreigner intrudes into his house. the lion opportunity like it if a stranger enters his house. the lion doesn't want his children to be taken away by someone else in the night. and the lion will not let this happen. so the afghanistan, the afghans are lions and the americans are intruders. and if this is the culture in which we operate in afghanistan and if this is the ally we bought with our money and our sacrifices, it tells you that there is plenty of room for the taliban and the hakani network. >> you know, fran, i think that's a point that many americans sort of see. certainly the rhetoric from karzai has been pretty amazing lately. he says, well, if the pakistan and the u.s. go to war, which we don't think is going to happen, you know, that the afghans would join the pakistanis. and you're thinking, wait a second, he's saying this while americans are still dying on behalf of afghanistan. is that what you take away from this? that they are allowed to just do this so freely, we assume, in afghanistan, that it is -- it says something about hamid karzai? >> oh, absolutely, candy. and it's interesting, the release of this sort of a video is really a play out of the al qaeda playbook. you know, the taliban, the hakani network, they may not all share the same goals as al qaeda, but what they do share is tactics. video releases like this, martyrdom videos, the successful attack videos, we've seen it in iraq, we've seen in afghanistan, we've seen it from al qaeda core. so this tells me, it is a very sophisticated, well-entrenched networks, and meant not only to intimidate americans, but also to intimidate afghans. >> let me just ask you quickly, mr. ajami, when you look at this, do you fear that when u.s. forces pull out, we will see a much stronger presence, the hakani network, and certainly the taliban, which remains in afghanistan? >> candy, they will inherent their country. it is their country. we are strangers in their country. and this is the point that karzai reminds us of every day. there is no gratitude. even on the part of our allies in afghanistan. i think our sacrifices, in my opinion, alas, in afghanistan,
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