Country. I wish as she goes i assume she is not running but will be here the next two years, and in the course of that time there will be recognition of the difference she has made for fairness and our economy, protection of our environment, respect for our men and women in uniform. She is really a great leader for our country. Small in size but giant a giant in terms of her contribution to the country. I didnt as i said all i had was a call from her but didnt want to keep you waiting. Its a real loss i think. But god bless her for her decision, and i wish her and stuart and their family well. Thank you. My granddaughter just took her grandson out for their sixth sixth birthday, born a couple of months apart so were very close from a family standpoint. Barbara senator boxer had a shower for my daughter christine, four days ago, five days ago. That would be and six years, and then the next day, her daughter nicole had the baby sawyer so theyre very close in age, and our family celebrations have been together over time whether its weddings or babies or whatever. So close personal friendship and of course i wish the best for her in that regard personally. Officially, i think its a big loss for the country. But she knows her timetable. Thank you all very much. A poll shows of current efforts dedefeat isis most americans say they would oppose deploying Ground Forces against isis although a significant minority 41 express open nose more extensive military engagement. The findings were discuss ted Brookings Institution today. This is an hour and a half. [inaudible] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen good afternoon. Thank you all for braving the arctic blast to join us this afternoon for this event which has been months in the preparation on what americans think about the fight against isis. For those of you whom i dont know my name is tamara witis, i direct the center for middle east policy here, and one of the things we do is we host our project on u. S. Relations with the islamic world and that project is the organizer of todays event. The United States finds itself now just four months into what were calling the antiisis struggle. One in which our leaders acknowledge will probably take years to play out and along with the attention to the horrific violence that this movement has wreaked on syrians iraqis and others, questions of momentum seem to dominate a lot of the Media Coverage around this new campaign. Has the United States and the antiisis coalition halted isis advance . Is the Iraqi Military retaking territory . Are the Kurds Holding kobani . These momentum questions that seem to occupy so much attention, at least here in the United States, but a lot of the questions i hear amongst our Coalition Partners and out in the middle east, have more to do with the u. S. Commitment to this struggle. After hard decade of war in iraq having only just ended the longest u. S. Combat operation ever in afghanistan, the question i keep hearing is whether americans have the stomach for another war of indeterminate length and scope against an illdefined enemy that can shift to new battlefields, as we saw yesterday, to horrific effect. Its important as we evaluate this question of american commitment to ask yourselves how do americans understand this threat . And then to think about how this struggle might play out, not only on the battlefields or iraq and syria, but here in washington, as Congress Reconvenes to contemplate potentially authorizing for the long term American Military force against isis. What exactly are americans willing to do on behalf of the struggle and for how long . And its to try and get a handle on those questions that we have convened today and its to get a handle on those questions that shibley tamahi along with his colleagues at the university of maryland and elsewhere, put together a wonderful Public Opinion poll which went out into the field last fall and the results of which we are launching today. Now, the first part of that pole about the American Public of the israelipalestinian conflict and the american efforts to resolve it. The second part of the poll is what were revealing today, what americans think about the fight against isis. And i am thrilled he is here and is going to discuss the significance of the findings by two wonderful colleagues. The is the professor of peace and development at the university of maryland. He is joined today by the editor of politico. The founder of Politico Magazine editor in chief of Foreign Policy and before that, a highly decorated journalist at the Washington Post and at roll call, and along with susan commenting on todays poll findings, we have our friend and colleague, e. J. Deongoing of the Governance Studies Program here at brookings, also a columnist at the Washington Post and a professor in the foundations of democracy and culture a wonderful title at georgetown university, my alma mater. So shibley will be coming up to present the findings of the poll ask then well bring susan and e. J. Up for a panel discussion. I want to just highlight before we start a couple of things. First off as an additional collaboration between shibley and politico today, just just now has gone live, an article he wrote based on pole findings called are americans ready to go to war against isil . Thats up on the political web site right now and i politico web site right now. And for those who are interested in joining a conversation about the poll on twitter today during the event and following, please tweet using our hash tag, isis poll. With that id like to invite shibley up to the podium. Thank you very much. [applause] thanks so much tamara and thank you all for coming on this cold day. Let me just say a couple of things by way of introduction about the poll and then ill go right to the results. This was sponsored by the sadat chair at the university of maryland in cooperation with the program for public consultation, done in the middle of november and it was first part was the israelpalestine issue and the second one was on icele and syria, which we will review today. A number of people helped with it. Im not going mention all the names but they were at the university of maryland, at brookings, and the program for public consultation. Also we have a sample of 1,008 an Online Survey conducted by jfk, the methodology you can find online for those interested in that aspect. The margin of error after the weighting is plus or minus 3. 4 . Let me go directly into sort of what drove the questions what are we trying to get at when we designed this poll . First, i have been really surprised by the fact that the American Public which is which was said to be war weary in basically because of the iraq and Afghanistan War and had opposed even a more minimalist intervention proposed by president obama after president obama told the American Public that bashar assad had used chemical weapons against his own people. Suddenly after a few beheadings, was pretty much open to approving certainly much more expansive intervention than was initially proposed against syria, and now some are even open to escalation of that intervention. So i know one of the easy answers in conventional wisdom is that its all about the beheadings, but the beheadings dont explain it because on the one hand, if its about the ruthlessness of the beheadings, we talked about chemical weapons in the case of assad and the public was still reluctant. If it were about americans, think about our conventional wisdom in the past when american soldiers were dragged on the streetness mowing in africa. So that doesnt explain it. We need to probe more. So we design the report to probe a little bit more into what the thinking is of the public and id like to share the findings. Let me start with the finding we shared earlier which is when you ask people about what are the most important threats facing american interests in the middle east and we have the Israeli Palestinian contact, iranian behavior, rise of Isis Saudi Arabia by far the rise of isis is number one. 70 of the public say its number one and that brings down the sense of iranian threat or violence in the israelpalestine question. Doesnt mean those issues are not perceived to be a threat to the american interests by the public. Just so focused on isis that by virtue of the elevation of isis, Everything Else looks less threatening in comparison. So clearly isis has emerged as the principle threats as americans see it in the middle east. And that seems to hold across party lines. Youll see in the poll there are huge divisions across party line particularly between public publics and democrats republicans and democrats. On theirs issue theres very little difference. 70 for democrats, 67 for independents, 72 republicans. So consistent across party line. Now, the next question is what do americans want to do about it . Obviously normally its when you ask a hypothetical question you have to understand its hypothetical. Not something they have to deal with immediately. And so we posed the question what if the current effort fail . You can see, if airstrikes arent enough to stop isis would you favor or oppose sending u. S. Ground troops to iraq to fight against isis. So, what we find is that this is hypothetical so you find 57 say theyre not open to it. 41 who favor. You have 2 who review. My own sense, when i say hypothetical and im posing it that way, if the president were to go to the American People and say, tomorrow, the airstrikes have failed, im asking you to send American Forces to finish the job i suspect the opposition would be greater. That is my interpretation of the hypothetical, because its a real issue. When its a real immediate issue, they are much more conservative in the way they react to it. And heres the interesting divide across party lines, and i think this is huge. Only 36 of democrats and 31 of independents would favor sending Ground Forces even if current efforts fail. Whereas you have a majority of republicans, 53 , who say they would favor it. Now, that is really an important finding and very important for the political process, particularly in the primaries. How candidates are going to define their positions on those issues, and you can see its going to be quite a difference. We have seen a lot of difference on the israelpalestine question. A huge divide particularly between republicans on the one hand and democrats and independents on the other and we see this a little bit here. Which of the following is closest in justifying the possible use of american Ground Forces. So we went to those 41 of the people who said, im prepared to use Ground Forces if airstrikes fail, and we tried to figure out, what is it that in their view justifies the use of Ground Forces . And so look at this. Yes, the rightlessness and intolerance of isis is in fact a factor 33 give that as a principle reason. But the number one answer is they really see isis as an extension of al qaeda. They see it as just another manifestation of al qaeda with which were still at war and Unfinished Business in a way its very hard for them to look at it separate from the view of al qaeda and thats one reason why they highlight it and 43 say that. Well above the worry about the rightlessness of isis. Now, two other things i want to say about this particular graph. If you look at the number of people who say that what is justifying in their minds their openness to deploying Ground Forces is that they dont give the possible threat to our most vital interests as in the number one answer. Only 16 basically say that they see it immediately as a or even the question was potential lay threat to Americas National thats not what is driving them in this particular regard, and certainly not a look at how many how small the number is of people who say its perceived threat to our allies. Only 7 think thats the reason we should send ground forced. This is among the people who are prepared to use Ground Forces, not the whole population. Theres a bit of divide across parties but not that much. I want to go to a second question because we have understood that everybody who does polling understands that on issues like this particularly when theres no immediate choice that the public has to decide on and you formulating some scenarios and hypotheses, the picks always conflicted so we wanted to push its little bit more to see the extent to which the public is open to involvement. So, we have the following scenario. The u. S. Should stay out of a conflict with isis. U. S. Cannot demeanor the course of war in syria and iraq. Our involvement would be slippery slope going from airstrikes to military advisers and ultimately combat troops. On the other hand, we must intervene at the level necessary to defeat isis. Isis not only threatens our allies. If it succeeds in expanding its increasing control of all resources it will become a greater threat to our interest. So we asked them, which one of those views is closest to your view. So basically just to see where they lean obviously in this regard and remember they have already said that majority said they dont want to send Ground Forces. But look at this. When you put this additional hypothetical with in reference to Ground Forces you still get majority roughly the same percent, 57 who say we must intervene at the level necessary to defee isis. This is not unusual with syria they want to do something but dont want to pay the price when you put a serious option on the table for them, and we see that here as well. I just want to go quickly to a few other questions. Which is the closest to your view even if we commit a significant number of Ground Forces, it is unlikely we can defeat isis in iraq and syria. If we commit large number of Ground Forces we can defeat isis but as soon as we withdraw, they or Something Like them will likely return. And the third is, if we commit a large number of Ground Troops we can defeat isis well enough so that it is unlikely they are Something Like them will return soon after we withdraw. And what you see here is, essentially only 20 believe that we can permanently defeat isis. And even those who think isis could be defeated a majority 60 , say they will return soon after we withdraw and that is the reluctance, that is really the principle reason for public reluctance to commit more because they think were going to be dragged into an indef any wart and thats been the experience indefinite war and that explains it. We see that to varying degrees across party lines. I want to transition to another set of issues which is about how the public perceives broad support for isis, particularly among muslims around the world. Obviously its an issue that has become tragically relevant given the massacre in paris yesterday, where obviously a lot of people are asking that question if theres any connection, whether communities in western societies will be dragged into it whether there will be operations on western soil. So, we had while we obviously didnt anticipate this kind of attack we know this has been on the publics mind so we asked questions specifically related to and it id like to review the questions here. The first one is, what is your impression of how muslims around the world feel about isis . Most muslims oppose it, most muslims support it, or most muslims are evenly balanced. And so what you find here is that only 14 of americans believe that most muslims support isis. But theyre really evenly divide between those that think most muslims oppose and it most muslims are evenly divided on isis. So its a mixed picture. However, when you look at it again, by party, its interesting that just look at the last category most muslims support it. 22 of republicans say most muslims support it versus only 6 for democrats and 13 for independents. You can see theres some kind of difference in interpretation. That carries itself through much of the poll, even though here its not as pronounced as some of the others. How worried are you that a significant number of americans will join isis in the middle east . Now, you can see that you have 40 say there are at least somewhat worried. There is 8 who say very worried. And clearly majority is not worried. But when you ask how worried are you that a significant number of americans will join isis and carry out attacks in the u. S. Surprisingly you get a bigger concern and so you have americans evenly divided on this one. You get 101 here only because obviously when we have. 5, we actually go to the next digit. So thats its not a mistake. Its a reporting issue. But you can see that theyre exactly equally divided among those who are worried and those who are not worried about it, and that is interesting. In and of itself. You see also that there is a variation across party line that by and large you find a little more worry among republicans than the rest. Do you think that support among americans for isis is likely to be greater than support for al qaeda less than support for al qaeda, or about the same . Now, the reason i inserted this is because of course we had this question about how does this compare historically we dont have Historical Data on this so i dont know how they felt about it before. So i put in al qaeda to see at least we have some rough comparison whether they say its more or less threatening than al qaeda in terms of americans joining isis, and their fear about americans joining al qaeda. And what we find is actually its slightly less worried. Roughly the same. You see 56 say its about the same, 25 say its actually less than al qaeda 17 say more than al qaeda. So i think this reinforces this other issue about what is it that is driving the propensity to want to intervene is theyre clearly combining isis and al qaeda. A large number of the public is combining isis and al qaeda in their mind. I want to switch to a few questions about syria and isis. One question is, which is the close toast your view if we spend enough resources to drain the Syrian Opposition it could stand up to isis and the assad regime the Syrian Opposition is too weak and divided. Even if we give it significantly more resources it cannot stand up to isis in the regime of assad. So which one is close toast your view and heres what we see. Clearly twothirds say the Syrian Opposition cannot stand up to isis no matter how much support we give it. And that is kind of a starting point for their attitudes on that. We then go and give them two scenarios that to evaluate two scenarios and see how much support those two have. One scenario is, assad has killed his own people with chemical weapons and is as bad as isis. There is now would to resolve the war in syria without removing the assad regime. Do you find this convincing or unconvincing . So now look at this. You find a lot of people find this very convincing. You have overall 70 say very convincing or somewhat convincing, but then we give them alternative hypothesis, which is assad wait a second i dont have the full scenario but we should not fight the assad army and let it fight isis. We had both scenario around that as well. And what we find is that still a majority agree with that even though obviously its somehow just a posed with the juxtaposed with the previous so fewer people agree with it. So 60 find this argument somewhat convincing as opposed to the other one, which is 70 . So then we go to the bottom line argument. So now that you have these scenarios, do you think the u. S. Military should or should not fight assad army in syria . And so what you have is a large majority 70 , said the u. S. Should not fight assads army in syria. So it clear reluctant, part based on isis, i think, but part of it is based on other factors as well. I just want to end with a couple of issues that i call linkage issues, in part because when we did this poll we had two parts one on israelpalestine and one on isis and syria, and we went to see some connection in there, and it was at a time when, if you recall secretary of state john kerry was criticized for suggesting that violence on the israelipalestinian front played into the hands of isis strengthened them and enabled them to recruit more people and focus more attention on the u. S. And israel. That was arrange. He made. The backtracked in large part because ogot a lot of criticism for it. So we actually wanted to see whether theres anything to this how the public sees this issue. So we asked directly, which one of the following is close toast your view. One option is the escalation of the palestinianisraeli conflict is liable likely to be used by isis to draw more support and the alternative palestinians and israeli violence will not affect the support for isis or its strategies. Its aims are independent of the palestinianisraeli conflict and its unlikely to draw more supporters because of it. So very clear two option is think summarize the debate. Heres what we get. A large majority twothirds 64 , say they think violence on the israelipalestinian front would be used to increase support for isis. And 30 say it wouldnt. In we further by the way, an interesting that about the divide between democrats and republicans. The secretary of state came under more kit simple from the republican side, but while theres slight difference between democrats and republicans, actually more republicans think theres linkage than democrats. 71 of rubs think theres i. Age between the issues. One final note. But it turns out also that in our polling, which asks which whether the American Public wanted the u. S. To lean toward israel to lean toward the palestinians or lean toward neither side we ran some correlations to see whether those who want the u. S. To lean toward israel had different views from the rest of the pop layings, whether theres linkage in the minds of some people. We find that there is. Among those who say they want the u. S. To lean toward israel, 73 say the palestinianisraeli conflict is likely to be used by isis to draw support. So surprisingly even more people think that among that segment of the public. And it also matters for how people want to those who want the u. S. To lean toward israel, tend to also be more open to military intervention, sending Ground Forces. Specifically, look at this slide in particular. Where you have those among those who lean toward israel 61 say that if airstrikes arent enough, the u. S. Should use Ground Forces versus only 31 . For the rest of the population. Now, i just want to make one point to im sure well have that in the conversation. This is not an indication of a causal relationship. Most likely it is part of a connected world view an ideological world view of the same people seeing who want to intervene, also tend to be pro we see that in the evangelical and across party lines. So dont be too quick to create a causal linkage but its interesting. Thank you for listening. I invite the panel to the stage. [applause] [inaudible conversations] thank you all [inaudible] shibley, thank you for giving us the highlights. There is quite a bit more in the packets that were available on the table, and of course more discussion in shibleys article for politico i mentioned earlier, and we can get into what this means up here in a conversation with all of you. Susan, let me start by probing the idea that shibley mentioned at the outset, well okay, americans went quickly from war weariness and reluctant to engage to readiness to support this new struggle. At the same time what we see in the results that were just presented is that americans are saying well, we have to do what is necessary to fight isis to defeat isis but we cant win in a lasting way. These guys are were not going to be able to defeat them or theyre going to come back as soon as we leave but we have to do it anyway. How do you understand that contradictory sentiment . Well, thank you so much shibley, and to you, tamara. I think im glad you start with that. Clearly theres a lot to unpack politically. I think theres a the superficialallity and the thenness of the support for what were doing its reflected in the fact that this is first of all, very amorphous, what is the it were talking about, and i think you have to consider were basically talking bat war without a name and all the attendant political consequences that come with that, which is to say im struck by the broad but clearly not deep at all support for whatever it is we think were sort of doing. Same thing with the bipartisanship. You have this on the surface very striking appearance of bipartisan consensus. Over 70 who appear to be absolutely fine with the policy were conducting and yet at the same time, basically theres a complete cynicism around the idea its actually going to accomplish much, and then, if it doesnt accomplish anything what should you do . You open up thiefs sure that will the fissure in american Politics Around Foreign Policy well talk about during the arc of the president ial campaign about to begin. I want to get back to that. Its washington and we cant avoid talking about the 2016 race even though its only january of 2015. In maybe many ways this poll has interesting implications for where the debate will go. First, e. J. , maybe one way to understand what looks contradictory or looks like reluctant or ambivalent, from susans description, commitment its the hardwon lesson of the last 13 years that well, were not always going to win. Were not always going to achieve our goaled but sometimes we have to get in there and get dirty anyway. I. S. That one way to understand it . I think that and is i think shibleys poll includes a lot of material that suggests even americans who would be sympathetic to intervention think the results might not be good and i think that is one of the lessons that people drew from iraq. I just want to sort of underscore what i see is a very interesting contradiction or ambivalence in the survey, and if you remember the numbers, ill just repeat them, two different questions that produced two different answers. If you asked the question, if airstrikes arent enough to stop isis would you favor or oppose sending u. S. Ground troupes. 57 opposed. Thats a doveish majority. But when you asked which of the following comes closest to your view we must intervene at the level necessary to defeat isis 57 saying yes. Thats a hawkish majority, which means Something Like 16 or 18 of the people in the survey gave answers on one question that did not seem to match the answer on the other question. And i just want to suggest two things. One is i do think some of that an iraq hangover. The other ills that i think there has been a profound ambivalence about intervention from the very beginning, and i went back for Something Else im doing i ran across this and win back and looked at a gallup poll before we intervened in afghanistan. This is a war broadly supported after 9 11 a poll after after 9 11 in november of 2001. So when president bush had a broad consensus in support of the invasion and 80 said yes 18 said no. Then gallup went underneath the numbers and of that 81 , 22 were reluctant warriors and they found those they classified them that way because they said they would not have supported intervention had 9 11 not happened. So combine the 22 with the 18 , youre already up, even at the moment when americans were most interventionist, you have 40 who are either doves or reluctant warriors and then when you took apart the rest, there were only 22 they found, who were consistent hawks, who would have been willing to intervene before. So i think that when we look at american opinion, there is this deep underlying reluctance to intervene, even in circumstances when most americans have a gut sympathy for the intervention. And one other point to go to your original question, should we fly which of these comes close to your view 22 s. A. T. Said flatly were unlikely to defeat isis but this is where iraq comes in. 56 said the u. S. Can defeat isis but they will not but they will return only 20 thought we could permanently defeat isis so that the war i think, the iraq war has created a kind of pessimism about the or let put it another way there is no longer an excessive optimism about what American Power can achieve. Interesting. Shibley, i wouldnt want to ask you about e. J. s comments on a longstanding tradition of reluctant warrior sent independent the American Public. First of all, on the last point, which is key, how people assess the prospects because we have a lot of literature we have International Real estate sheer theories, why particularly the American Public says ive had enough. At what point do they say we dont want anymore of this and a lot of theorists suggest its a link to their assessment of whether you can win or not because at some you can pay a price up to a point, and obviously the assessment is, theres no real clear win here. Thats clear. Iraq is one case and even afghanistan, people decent really see undoubtedly influencing the publics mood. Going back to reluctantundoubtedly. I think by and large the american mood remember, particularly after the end of the cold war i mentioned the mogadishu case of 1990 when we had these soldiers dragged in a very ugly way. This is remember, this, is a time where we are the sole super power, in the middle of celebrating that. The cold war ends the year before. Were the mighty power. Everybody is we can lead. Right . And yet the public says, instead of saying lets go after them says pull out. Actually the publics instinct that the prime si wasnt to intervene but how it looked at home. So i think the instant in the public not to intervene is there, but then what happens is they assume that america is safe and the minute they think there is a threat or feel there is a threat, theyre conflicted and thats what we see. A lot of conflicted attitudes in the poll. Okay, so its very interesting because both of you are really talking about how americans define americas role in the world. Were not there to tromp around and wreak or will, as long as were safe we should let things go and 9 11 changed that not because of how we think about our role in the world but because of threats. What i found striking maybe not striking to all of you 40 of americans are worried that a significant number of american citizens will join isis and attack the United States. Now, were going release a paper here brookings, on monday, on the question of foreign fighters going and fighting in iraq and syria and the threat that poses to the United States and europe, but we havent seen a large number of americans running off to fight isis. Where do you think this is coming from . Because to the president talked it up of the summer because the Intelligent Community was out there saying this was a real problem . This is important. First of all, this about the first mention of Barack Obamas name in this conversation, which i find very striking and i want to get back to that in a second. Directly to your question the survey makes fairly convincing my guess is i dont have the Historical Data from shibleys work but my guess is we also would see similarly high fears around the possibility of an attack inside the u. S. Homeland from al qaeda in the post9 11 ear ramp those numbers have been quite high even given the fact there have not been many subsequent attacks. So i see it as consistent with were willing to have even what might be much harsher response to a perceived threat even if theres a very low risk of the actual perceived threat here at home and that seems to me to be consistent with what we see from the American Public, and clearly people do believe that this is either an offshoot of al qaeda or the logical extension of the radicalization of a small segment of this part of the middle east. So to me that seems very much connected with our anxieties around this farway conflict that has managed, even in a small way to manifest itself here. Barack obama, the thing i would say that is interesting to me about the survey is it kind of reflects the inherent unresolved conflicts, contradictions, and the administrations policy, in many ways you can almost say he is either representing and reflecting or has designed a policy that more or less intentionally or not reflects the ambivalences and ambiguities and uncertainties of how americans see the situation. He is very much in line with, were worried about it but only willing to do so much. A wink and a nod. Thats been what he has conveyed to the extent he has spoken which is not very much about this conflict. More or less the president has kind of made it clear, it seems to me, he doesnt think were necessarily going to be defeating isis anytime soon. He also doesnt think and also made it very clear he wont be going to war against the Assad Government anytime soon. So i think thats just Something Interesting to reflect on. Can i Say Something on your question. And then come back to syria. Briefly on obama, think obamas position reflects pretty well where the country is, which is the country wants to act on isis but its reluctant to get too involved in the effort and it also shows why the president didnt push ahead to get authorization to strike syria when he wanted to or at least why the congress didnt seem well never know but didnt seem prepared to give him that. When you look at the numbers in the survey on syria, opposition intervention is enormous and crosses party line. Almost no partisan difference on that. I was really struck by that enormous number who believe that americans are going to fight with isis. If have been thinking about the rock n roll song, paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep. Id love to see work in the survey, which americans believe that, but if one thinks that number is high think or what that number might be like if you took the survey tomorrow. Morning after what ahead in paris. I just say, ive been a journalist all my life but anybody who cared about Free Expression has to be horrified and stand in solidarity with the people of the magazine, and perhaps we can talk about it but murder doesnt settle arguments. It ends them. It ends lives. National americans looking at that and it does appear that they the attackers were french, if im correct, somebody correct my had citizenship. Will that number go up . Will that increase our paranoia that is already very substantial . And on the one hand i look at that number and say i dont share that view. Im not worried. And then particularly when we looks at the history of the american muslim community, which is a historically moderate community, very Successful Community in american life. So, the odds of that happening in large numbers strike me as very small, but we look at horror like this and people say, all right i have to check that view. Something wrong with that. But it was a very big number. A striking number. Just on this. I think you are probably right, if theres a poll today or tomorrow after the massacre in paris, probably go up. Im not sure go up a lot because i think in the American Public mind they have generally differentiated between what is happening in europe and what is happening in america. That could be right. But the second thing is that number is high for sure, 40some percent, but the number of miami say they are very worried is very small, and you can attribute almost to ideological. Some of it. Not all. The 8 is and also when you then have a rough comparison with al qaeda, if anything is slightly less than what they thought al qaedas capacity to recruit americans was. So in a way yes its high for sure, and you have to and that does tell you something but its not as intense as we should be careful not overinterpret it. So in other words were not in the Public Opinion environment we were in the immediate post 9 11 era where people were willing to contemplate a lot of things on the basis of their threat perception. I want to come back to the point susan made a few minutes ago which is that it seems that president obama has actually done a pretty masterful job of reflecting Public Opinion at least as indicated in this poll in his policy as he is triangulated the demands from the Intelligence Community from allies in the region and from American Public and from congress in dealing with the question of isis and American Military engagement in iraq and syria more broadly. So okay, the American Public says assad is an awful guy. He has done terrible things. But the Syrian Opposition cant defeat him, even if we help them. So maybe we shouldnt overinvest in that, and the u. S. Military shouldnt try to defeat him. Thats not our priority. So if those those each of those three findings came out of different parts of your poll shibley. If obama has in fact triangulated well, then, none where does that leave congress as it tries to think about authorizing this fight . There are, of course those in congress who would like to authorize a broader fight, including against assad, and there are those in congress who want to tie this administration and the next administrations hands as much as possible, including on issues like Ground Troops written looks like they will have some support, so thats one question what does an authorization to use military force look like if congress is going to reflect this Public Opinion . Second, what does this say about the fight that is largely within the Republican Party over Foreign Policy between more interventionist views and more reticent, rant paul versus john mccain, putting it in very rough terms. We have an ambivalent public. Does that favor rand paul . Does it mean that john mccain has already lost the argument with the American Public . How do we interpret the way thats will play out Going Forward . E. J. . I think one of the pair docks for president obama paradoxes for president obama this is even more obvious before the election when his numbers were lower. His numbers have recovered some. Where you seem to have obamas policy matching Public Opinion pretty well, and yet the approval of his Foreign Policy was way down. Now issue think there a couple things going on there. One is republicans would disapprove president obama probably if the could change straw into gold there would be something wrong with the gold. And so theres just a deep partisan feeling against president obama, but the other thing is, americans want two things at the same time. They do not want a disorderly world. They do not want the rise of groups like isis and they dont want us to do too much to intervene in weighed that will hurt us again. Reminded me of, looking at the survey the a famous observation that americans are operational liberals buddiedologial conservatives. They dont like government in theory but like stuff government does, and some of the stuff government gives them. Similarly, americans are ideological interventionist but operationally cautious, and i think that is you see that right there. Right in our faces here, and so for the president there is this challenge where they americans want somehow for him to make the conflict, these trouble goes away but dont necessarily will all the means that might require. On the republicans clearly they are the group split most in this survey. If air strikes arent enough would you favor or oppose sending in u. S. Ground troupes 5. 3 of republicans favor so a hawkish view still prevails but narrowly, 46 oppose. Which i think points potentially, if rand paul gets in the race to to a very interesting day bait inside the Republican Party. Theres always then a strong antiinterventionist libertarian realist view within the Republican Party. And rand paul is going to try to speak for that view, and its probably the case of the silent majority but an awfully large minority. The poll also points out dish totally agree with that that there is an ideological component even within the fractured rub party where support for israel is much higher and its higher among evangelicals, which we talked before the panel which has gone up as a proportion of the most fervent israeli supporters of israel in u. S. Politics is evangelical. That complicates the election even further because youre talking about potentially candidates in the president ial race whose Foreign Policy views may or may not line up with the very strong evangelical support required in places like iowa, for example, and so i think what were looking at, number one is that Foreign Policy is likely to be a big irissue in the 2016 president ial campaign for these reasons, perhaps even than it was in the primary season in 2012, for example. And so i think that already seems to be how its playing out. Number two the support for israel, of course is much higher across the board in american politics. Democrats and republicans and europe. Thats important when you consider what the aftereffects will be of this horrific attack in paris. Theyre very likely to play out differently among the European Public both in france and more broadly across the european union, both because this is a neighborhood issue for our partners that makes it a very much more comparable to Something Like this happening in canada than it is to how our reaction it to is going to be, and also theres just a really different attitude towards the divisions and fractures in the middle east that exist in american politics because of that really rockhard support for israel across the political speck truck. There have been some fraying that is interesting and we can talk about it separately. And the dem Democratic Party, about our at tattooed and talking about 2016 that is a republican story. It was Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state who teamed up back door outside with David Petraeus and worked and lobbied president obama unsuccessfully at that time to do more both to support the Syrian Opposition and to intervene in a way that obama has never been willing to do, and that actually my final point get to back to the question of, did obama design the syria policy that the American Public wants . It may well be he did so but the American Public would probably disapprove of itself if it was president. If i may just on this issue, because the consequences for the american elections and particularly the republicandemocrat divide on Foreign Policy, which is striking across the board. I certainly believe that Foreign Policy will be a major issue in the campaign. And not because it is for a lot of americans. It is because i think the president is relatively popular on other issues, and if the economy continues to do it, his numbers are not very good on Foreign Policy, and thats going to be one that will be picked on by the republican side. But thats going to change the dynamics because what we see is that while the republicans are somewhat divided on some issues including the intervention using Ground Forces in the middle east, the gap between the grassroot Republican Party and the leadership in congress is not very wide. The gap between grassroot democrats and leadership in congress is wider on Foreign Policy. In part because the democrats are player National Politics and being on the phonessive by the offensive by the republicans. It gives the president and therefore even the insinuation that iraq would be possibly helpful in dealing with isis actually helps the president because that is where the public is. So in some ways that too you know place to not only a think to the Democrat Democratic Party but republicans will be interesting to see how the republicans play that out in the elections. You mention the policy and they seem to have said this, it wasnt like the administration took a poll and precipitous policy that i actually think a obama won the election because the ambivalence he feels is similar to the ambivalence the country feels. They dont always like the results of the various policies they support. They support the thing that they dont think is going to. I dont think the other thing wont work either. Thats right. Thats right. But they dont think the other thing will work either. Thats a mistake. You are right and i have to say is somebody who worked in the first term of the Obama Administration that this is something that i think is deeply ingrained in a lot of the people who came and with the president and it is partly an iraq hangover but i think its partly much deeper than that. Which is a keen sense of the limitations of american capacity to accomplish things particularly but not only using force in the world. We try and we may have good intentions. We may bring tremendous resources into it but it often impacted mostly doesnt work. I was struck over and over again by it while i was in the frustration and since i have left the sense of incapacity and the way that constrains willingness. This is not dare and dare greatly. Its also not importantly a caricature that i think many in the mccain camp of the Republican Party put out there. It is not postvietnam america is a bad actor. Its a maligned actor in the world. Its a believe that no america is a benign actor. Its just not a very capable actor. We are not bad. We just. And i think thats a pretty powerful sense. Also among the American Public as these numbers reveal and therefore something that i think coming in sense of the Obama Administration has only been reinforced by what they have experience in office and by what the public is telling them as the problems mount and mount. Just one second because i dont think the publics ambivalence is stupid. I dont mean to say that it is. I know he didnt mean that but i recast the administrations view just a little bit which is to say there are some things even a competent power cant achieve even if they put in vast numbers of resources. I think that is a lesson that a lot of people drew from iraq which is if the circumstances on the ground are not in a situation where an American Intervention could then lead to ask why and see happening and a happy result than all the confidence in the world and all the resources and all the human beings we still wont get the result we want. Therefore a certain amount of caution is in order. I think that would be my sense of the ambivalence view comes down to. Fair enough and also an appreciation of how much more complicated the world is today. Its really hard. Things are really really hard. I want to get to one more point before it opened up to all of you and shibley you mention this in your opening presentation that there is especially on the right may be in those cross tabulations on the last couple of slides theres an ideological continuity across issues whether its israelpalestine, syria and isis. Can you help us understand a little bit what this constellation looks like . Its not neoconservative. It doesnt seem to be partisan. How do we understand that . Is really interesting because we see it in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party and when i probed on the middle east specifically its interesting what you get. On the republican side the most intensely held views on Foreign Policy that tend to be conservative come out of people who classify themselves as evangelical bornagain. A significant percentage of the Republican Party right now nearly half of the Republican Party. This is not a small group but a lot of those views, or worldview if you wish comes out of that. It requires deep analysis to how this group and obviously they are diverse and i do want to suggest they are not diverse but overall and Foreign Policy they tend to be much more in agreement that on the democratic side i suggest theyre something you might call a Human Rights Community that has emerged. I bunched bunched up and even tested to see whether for example people who are expressing views on israeli issues are serious issues are doing it because they care about israel or they have taken sides or they care about american strategic interests. Turns out the number one concern for much of that constituency is human rights. So there is a community where the Reference Point isnt necessarily specific issues and what those without is a particular interpretation. Doesnt always tell you whether we should intervene are not because you could take it both ways but i think theres a worldview and may be multiple worldviews within each party and therefore i think it wouldnt be surprising if people are not analyzing the relationship between issues. Is it good for iran are good for isis are good for assad and day on the whole have a propensity to ascertain it in a particularly because of the worldview. Yes we can defeat assad and yes we can defeat aside the isis and iran at the same time. Some people feel to take these views india people who say we can do anything, forget it. So what im suggesting is while obviously we need to focus on what is suggested on the small segment that sways from one site to the next we are starting off with people who have roughly entrenched views that come out of the worldview and not so much out of analyzing a particular strategic consequence of a reaction. I think thats clear in my mind. Thats why suggested we shouldnt jump to conclusions about cause and effect when we look at correlations in these results. Okay, great. Let me open it up for questions from the floor at this point and is going to reiterate our house rules. Number one please wait until you are called the number two please identify yourself before asking your question number three one singular question. Thank you very much and we will start right over here. Former u. S. Ambassador to syria. Im going to get to the question pretty quickly but too fair to paraphrase dick cheney before the iraq war even if theres a 1 chance or less that terrorists or iraq gets their hands on weapons of mass destruction we have to go all out. And i wonder shibley if you had a question that would Say Something to this effect and what im getting at is a lot of americans seem to have exaggerated fear of terrorism and isis and what could happen to them and their families and communities but we keep sending the same people over and over again to fight a war that we say we cant win. So the question is if you had concluded in your survey how would you feel about this if the draft was reinstituted in somebody close to you was going to possibly be sent to fight this war that you are in favor of. How would you then feel about it . I would be interested in that. It seems to me it has become too easy for hawkish inclinations to say im a little concerned so i think we ought to send in the 82nd airborne. Do you want to take take one time . Why dont we take one more if you dont mind shibley and then we will come back. In the third row here. Yes. I am from the Muslim Public Affairs council and the question is in spite of the fact that its mostly muslims in the case of kurds and iraqis and syrians fighting against isis there are rumblings within certain sectors of the media here and in social media that muslims are somehow not doing enough to counter ices so im wondering if you actually included that kind of information or probed for that within your survey and what your findings were. Good, okay. Let me start with teds question which is a good one in highlighting the choices that people face and as i said in my opening remarks usually the more realistic the option is immediate to them the more conservative they become undoubtedly. It doesnt have to be about the draft. As i said when youre given a hypothetical one of the airstrikes are not enough . Would you support it, thats a theoretical yes. If tomorrow i suggested obama obama says that at work im going to send troops they are going to get fewer numbers of people who support so you have to keep that in mind. Theres always a connectedness with the reality and yet lets also be realistic. The president asked them to strike syria from afar just by shooting missiles punitive and they said no. The president said im going to send you now my air force and some Logistical Support to iraq and syria for the first time and they supported it. So the public you know, they will sometimes support it but the question is what is the limit . And that wasnt just hypothetical. That was a real question. And on the second question i have been asked that question and im sure there are others who have. This is something certainly often that is debated so are muslims doing enough . I suspect regardless of whether they are doing or not doing enough you are going to get probably a large percentage of people who say probably not. I wouldnt think a majority but i would think he would get a large number of people who would take that position just like a lot of people are worried they would be americans who would join. I would expect that. That obviously doesnt mean thats true. You know theres a whole debate and all kinds of combinations of this and even in france talking about quote we are not like the french and we are not obviously but the french when you look at the muslim french overwhelmingly they are moderate. Most of them are secular and most of them dont want anything to do with religion like the rest of the french population. So the fact that you have these criminals who are conducting these awful attacks is not a representation. You cant lump it together. Its a problem obviously in some sentiments that people are dealing with. Objectively i think the question on where you place the emphasis on who is doing what in terms of fighting. But if you want to look for voices or condemnation you could look in egypt today to leaders across the arab and muslim countries to Community Leaders including imams in various groups so you have condemnation. I dont think thats going to matter because those people who are carrying out these horrific attacks use religion as an instrument. They are killers and their aims are political and i think, im not sure delegitimizing by the mainstream is necessarily going to be effective affected. Its interesting to the gap between i think the Intelligence Community both here and youre up there understanding of the muslim communities within their borders and the percentage that are radicalized versus the vast majority who are opposed to such radicalization and the perception of the public. Clearly theres a big gap there and jim hoagland i think had a wonderful piece in the post they came out this morning about the challenged the french Government Faces in responding to this because they are going to face contending pressures. Its very polarized. We have already seen a lot of strengthening of the very rightwing antiislamic antiimmigrant Political Forces inside france and inevitably partly by design the guys who did this are stoking the growth of that sentiment. Two quick points. One on the french and im not knocking the french. What i was saying is what i do think is the case in other words shibley i was talking about american muslims are not like theyre muslims islams specifically the class position of american than the class position of muslims in france and francis had a very large group of relatively poor unemployed muslims to the degree degree. Thats not the case in americanmuslim community and this gentlemans question which i do think the whole issue about the fact that we dont have a draft and few members of congress have sons and daughters in the military very few is important. I didnt read this poll is terribly hawkish and even on the question we must intervene at the level necessary to defeat eyes to defeat eyes as they alternatively was worded worded strongly in the way to put people into that with the u. S. Should stay out of the conflict with the ices which god 39 . I think a lot of people may have drifted to the more hawkish answer because their view is we shouldnt stay up but we still dont want to send Ground Troops. I saw a certain determination about ices but not a really hawkish result. Interesting though that 39 is higher than you get on the chicago councils broad question of should the u. S. , is it better for the u. S. To be involved in World Affairs are to stay out of world World Affairs . I think their latest result was about one third said stay out. The 7 majority. Why do we take a couple more. Over here in the front. Thanks very much. I am here at mitchell. Shibley when i listen to the results of your work im struck by the distinction and it makes me think about the distinction of what people think as opposed to how they think about the questions you pose. And thinking back to the first of these two sessions the Israeli Palestinians conflict when he spoke about one of the ways to distinguish is the people who look at this very human rights lands and they people who look at it very National Interest lands. If the glasses you wear Human Interest classes you saw the israelipalestinian situation you tended to see the one light and if you were at the National Interest classes you saw it in another light. I guess my question is and e. J. Has touched on it is there such a factor at work in these questions about ices and syria if not literally human rights in u. S. Interest . Is there some other way that people think about this issue that determines what their responses to your questions have been . We will take a second question over on this side. In the yellow sweater. Im harlan a. Recovering realists. [laughter] in terms of an observation that we have been unsuccessful in two wars in large measure i would argue because we have had to have had to present have had two president s who are inexperienced and not competent to start them in to finish wars and during world war ii we had propaganda against a foe that deserved it. During the cold war we werent bad but the question i want to pose to you is for secretaries of state without affect why we had have a good character narrative to cheat destroy the credibility of Al Qaeda Isis in these horrible movements by rallying the muslim world and maybe to get King Abdullah from saudi arabia to say this is not good. Why have we been unable to do that . Susan do want to start off on that . I cant speak to an internal saudi Public Opinion but i think you have to say these guys when it comes to american Public Opinion are effective american propagandists frankly. Chopping peoples heads off on video has given them pretty low Approval Ratings when it comes to not only the United States but american muslims. Somebody said to me last fall when this escalation was occurring they are not only triggering a obama to do something that he was extremely reluctant to do but they are almost like a caricature of the Perfect Dream billon when it comes to american politics. I am not entirely sure in the american political context that they havent been pretty effective propagandists themselves for their own cause. Of course thats a selffulfilling prophecy because it they bring down our wrap if they could actually get the United States to reinvade iraq that would be their dream. I think a bigger part of the framing we havent talked a lot about today that i would throw in there he started to get into it before we went to the questions which is the historical context. Its a really about where americans are right now in terms of their use of American Power and american Foreign Policy or does this poll reflects a very correct historical assessment that most American Interventions or any interventions are likely to feel . It seems to me the same way that one could reasonably look at restarting negotiations for peace talks among the israelis and palestinians that the odds are extremely odd that they wont succeed. You dont need to have a lot of additional information. I just wonder if the poll tells us more about a sensible conclusion based on their available knowledge that this policy is not likely to affect things very much one way or the other rather than being a real snapshot of these americans are foreignpolicy realists at heart heart. Shibley i want to ask you to draw on the earlier polling that you have done across the arab world and of course we have a lot of data from gallup and others broader sentiment in muslim majority countries around the world toward islamist extremism. So what do we know and what do we know about that counternarrative maybe not driven by the u. S. Government that may be driven by others . I will quickly address the earlier questions and the worldview issue is something that needs to be probed. Thats something i would start with because they think theres something always there that is just covered when you focus on the issues and to look at these packages. It goes down to it relates to what gary asked about. What is the prism through which democrats and republicans view these issues or at least the American Public and obviously some multiple prism. I just want to know one thing on the poll you refer to you are right about the democrats mostly sikh human rights and the palestine question most of the people through a human rights but the republicans dont see it through u. S. Interest prison media. They see it through to prisons. One is also human rights by the way particularly evangelicals but the evangelicals see if there are religious lens. On that one they are the only community in the poll that had a strong feeling about their position religiously mowed and there will be more dull analysis of the data and further demographics as we have done in the past but i would suggest if you look here at the democrats and republicans alone it tells you there something of at the worldview that you have to analyze. Just by looking at the differences on some critical issues. Going back to tamara pasta questions about attitudes in the muslim world of course we have been doing that. Ive been doing polling for a dozen years in their countries on multiple issues including attitudes towards extremism and a qaeda. We have asked many questions originated by al qaeda specifically and there is something to be learned here. Initially when we probe about the last decade and a half certainly after 9 11 what we find is that most people when you ask them what it is about, what aspect do you admire the most of any and so the number one answer during that decade is the fact that they stand up to the United States member two championing causes like the arabisraeli issue. Those have said that they endorsed its agenda of the puritanical taliban like state were small minority that ranged from four to 10 and there were no variations. So was by and large enemy by enemy. Thats not necessarily the case for people who joined. Remember we are talking about Public Attitudes and the broader community. Why do people join. Thats a different story but of those attitudes and the public in general it was the enemy. Interesting the interesting thing about isis is while it is of course it is derived from al qaeda. If you look at al qaeda and iraq theres a link and ideological link but heres the interesting thing. When isis initially emerged is that unlike al qaeda my first name is not my first aim is not america and was tapping into something really interesting. First you had sunni communities that were unhappy with the ruling governments in both places but more importantly the fact that you had an arab spring of people wanting to get rid of regimes that have obviously stalled and the regimes are fighting back. So they were tapping into something that was different from al qaedas issues. They were tapping into people who were angry with regimes and by and large it wasnt their operational priority. Now its different. So now the interesting thing the minute you go in and you intervene do you make it about america and you play into their hands of people that were reluctant to support them but still may be angry with america . I still think one of the things is working it gives them his al qaeda seem to be remote insignificant america Centric Organization that had no chance of ruling over them. With isis its too close to home. An overwhelming majority of people in the arab world would never want Something Like isis to rule. That probably is the one that is deflecting a little bit with the United States in the fight against isis. Garrett always asked the most philosophical and interesting questions and im going to answer. I was struck on the issue of what are the roots of opinions on isis. It seems to me shibleys poll presents three groups. The largest groups are simply americans who fear it is an extension of al qaeda and americans want to fight against a terrorist threat. Thats 43 but then 33 gave a human rights answer most troubled by isis roofless paper and intolerance. Then what foreignpolicy types tend to worry about isis could threaten our most vital interest 16 are threaten allies in the region 7 so the smallest number are the people who think like foreignpolicy specialists which conclude we are a nation of more lists or protector on shuras jacksonians who tend to be governed by realists. [laughter] that is a fascinating point. I have to add one note on the question of Public Opinion in muslim majority countries when it comes to the extremists and isis and al qaeda cap is at a real disadvantage here. We have to recognize even that even if the vast majority of these populations rejects them, rejects the ideology, rejects their goals, rejects the idea that they might rule over them and the territory they have conquered they dont need a majority of these populations to be successful. And they certainly dont need a majority of these populations to do what these three guys did in paris yesterday. They need a tiny, tiny french. That is the essence of what makes this counterterrorism struggle so hard. You can do a lot on a counternarrative. You can do a lot on enabling environment but you really dont need that many people to be a successful terrorist group. Thats a tough reality with which we have to reckon. I apologize ladies and gentlemen. You have been fantastic and i see there are a lot more questions but we have run out of time. I really want to thank you all for coming and i want to thank you susan, e. J. And shibley for a wonderful poll and a fantastic conversation we will be continuing this conversation in the weeks and months to come. Please join us. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] coming up representative rosa delauro and other capitol hill lawmakers speak about their opposition to fasttracking trade deals with other countries. Countrymen especially the people of ohios aging Congressional District thank you for sending me here and lets today welcome all of the new members in all of their families to what we all know to be a truly historic day. [applause] today is an important day for our country. Many senators took the oath this afternoon, 13 for the first time and the new republican majority accepted its new responsibilities. We recognize the enormity of the task before us. We know a lot of hard work awaits. We know many important opportunities await as well. Rosa delauro. [applause] okay thank you, thank you one and all and i said earlier what a crowd. Its a great day here for all of us. [applause] thank you, thank you, thank you. I do appreciate your being here today. I will be brief because we have a lot of speakers who are eager to tell you why they feel so deeply about stopping fasttrack. You see before you one of the broadest coalitions that i have taken part in since i came to the congress some 24 years ago. In addition to our speakers we have representatives in the room from a huge range of organizations. We have environmental groups including the center for International Environmental law friends of the earth, green america, the league of conservation voters, Community Organizations like the institute for agriculture and trade policy policy, Consumer Protection groups like the Consumer Federation of america. Unions including the American Federation of teachers the American Federation of state counties and municipal employees employees. The International Union and the united brotherhood of carpenters, the united commercial workers, the International Brotherhood of boilermakers, the International Brotherhood of electrical workers teachers in the International Federation of professional and technical engineers. Trade advocacy groups including the alliance for democracy citizens trade campaign, americans for democratic action united students against sweatshops. Faith groups like the American Friends Service committee and the Friends Committee on national legislation. Groups including the human rights campaign, pride at work and the national lgb tq task force. Health care advocacy groups like the center for medicare advocacy advocacy. All of these diverse viewpoints are united. They are united in their opposition to fasttrack. A policy that is designed to ramp trade deals through the Congress Without serious debate or opportunities to amend. Why have all these different folks signed up for this coalition . Because they know that trade deals go well beyond trade. They can compromise the quality of the food we eat great they can raise the prices that we pay for medicine. They can attack our environmental regulation, weaken our Financial Regulation stop our government from supporting american businesses and they do nothing to stop the injustice of currency manipulation. This coalition exists because trade deals affect everybody. We need to be able to scrutinize the tax page by page line by line word by word. You remember the mantra, have you read the bill . Read the bill and we need to read this bill just as we would do with any other piece of legislation. Let alone legislation with such farreaching implications. With fasttrack all we get is an upordown vote on each trade deal. That is simply not acceptable. It is the opposite all of our constitutional duty as members of congress. I for one of my colleagues are not going to stand for it. American workers have suffered great harm under nafta and other deals like it. Representatives must be able to consider carefully the consequences of future deals. Fasttrack would be yet another insult to the american worker. This is why i and my fellow members of this Coalition Say no to fasttrack. Its now my pleasure to introduce a public figure who has spent his career fighting hard on behalf of American Workers are present at the aflcio richard trumka. [applause] thanks rosa and its good to be with all of you. Let me say happy new year. Up here on capitol hill you have a simple choice. You either approved fasttrack and by doing so pull a curtain in front of another effort to drive jobs out of america and push down wages or you deny fasttrack and give us a chance to raise wages and narrow the ever widening income gap. Thats as easy as it gets but theres more. I have a lot of friends in politics and there isnt one, not one of you that says you want to lower wages or drive down our standards. Nobody says they would like to drive our communities to ruin and yet thats exactly what our lousy trade deals have done. Thats why fasttrack is so dangerous. It allows politicians to speak out of one side of their mouth to voters on the other side to special interests. And you cant have it both ways. Fasttrack is out of date. Its poorly conceived and it is bad for American Workers and america itself. The aflcio doesnt just oppose fasttrack. We are going to fight actively to kill it and we are going to win a fight. [applause] trade negotiation should be open to the public. These deals affect their lives. Let us see the process. Its past time for congress to reassert its Constitutional Authority over trade trade America Needs a new trade model and the aflcio opposes fasttrack but we stand ready to work on a new trade model that will benefit all americans not just wall street executives. Second we need to talk about more than just a new trademark. We need a whole new conversation great lets talk about Something Different for a change. Lets look at ways to build america. Lets focus on forwardlooking initiatives that will help hardworking American Families by raising the minimum wage and addressing currency manipulation and passing a longterm highway bill and investing in education and training for students. Look, the American Workers are asking, the American Workers are demanding that each of you oppose fasttrack. Trade deals should be open to the American Public and should benefit everybody, not just wall street. Its now my pleasure to introduce representative louise porter. [applause] good morning america. Im so glad to see this crowd. I have been here for a while and im telling you is absolutely overwhelming. One of the things we have been worried about because americans understand whats happening here and didnt thanks all of you that people you represent from these wonderful groups that rosa mentioned from the Labor Movement who has done such a wonderful job and those of you in a press attending this morning you have my thanks. Fasttrack came to the rules committee for which i set. In the mid70s they were the largest manufactures and we were pretty sure we eyes would be. Thats when they decided they would let the executive department of president determined that trade bill for trade agreements and we wouldnt bother with them in congress. We would simply never got a Committee Meeting with any of it. Is wright a trade bill sent up there and will vote yes or no. Over the years thanks mainly to rotten trade bills that they had written that were never enforced and i say that absolutely, there was never enforcement in any of the rules of the trade bill. Look at what we were promised and what we got. Partly because of that our economy has fallen and we have seen parts of this country decimated by the fact that we could not keep our jobs here because people were chasing a cheap dollar. There are still parts of the tax code in United States of america that encourage movement overseas. We are trying to get rid a lot of those because believe me they are out of date. The last one we did as you know was the south korean trade agreement. Let me talk about south korea. I say this a lot so i can do in a second. South korea is one of the countries that we are obliged to fight for and all of south korea would rebuild with her contract after the war and 26 car deals would sell american cars. We go to big trade agreement and we say is this a good thing for us to do . I stopped voting for trade agreements because i knew no one would jobs that let me tell you what the trade agreement promises and all the wonderful good things. The new korean trade agreement last month was the absolute worst trade agreement we have ever had with korea. It must be more pounds before we sign an agreement. We have 2. 8 billion in a single month that we transfer to korea. Take about that. They are still not buying anything from us. So what we have to have if we are doing to the trade bill are manufactures have goods that we dont want any more free trade. We want fair trade. And we are introducing a bill to do just that and taking trade enforcement and putting into Labor Department and away from the people who wrote the trade bill who never after they wrote it on competent never looked at it again. We need to renegotiate some of those we have. We have got to do the best thing we can do for the world. The best thing we can give is not our jobs for the Strong Economy here so we can be helpful to the rest of the world and help lift them up which is what we intended to do but we never ever should have given away our economy. Im happy to be here this morning and i want to thank rosa delora and im so proud to be entertained. I have the great privilege of introducing someone who is a heroin to everyone last one of us and inspires me every day Susan Campbell is with us. [applause] thank you. What an honor to be here. I am Simone Campbell the executive director of network a National Social justice lobby and the leader of nuns on the bus. And what we know is based on our context in local areas and im here today to oppose fasttrack because we know from catholic sisters in Central America, my sisters in mexico that these trade agreements create a huge imbalance in deep equilibrium and specially in rural communities. This past year we were shocked we had a lot of Central American kids on our borders but theres a direct correlation between having those kids on our borders and the dislocation and Central Americans sending countries. The economies especially rural areas have been so disrupted that the power of violence and fear is was driving most children away to safety. What happens in these negotiations is too often the negotiators get so fixed on their business interests they dont think of the rest of the impact on society. So im here today is a member of the Faith Community to say the faithful way forward is to have a full discussion were other points of view, not just those of the business and economic interests can be engaged in the conversation about these trade agreements. We knew from nafta that the pressure on immigration was going to be great in Central America and yet we acted surprised when it happened on our border. We know the consequences of these poorly crafted trade agreements so we are saying give the 100 a chance to engage in a dialogue, raise the issues and prevent tragedy in the future. That is a way forward so fasttrack the seal of approval without even looking at it as congressman delauro said is the wrong way forward. Give us a chance to read the bills to engage in conversation and let the voice of the people be heard for the common good for all. That is our position. Thank you. [applause] and now its my honor to introduce congressman pete defazio democrat from oregon. [applause] yesterday was a big day in fasttrack. Mitch mcconnell came out for trade adjustment and does that mean that antilabour labor antiunion Mitch Mcconnell suddenly developed a hard figures about working people . No he knows this agreement is going to cost american jobs so therefore hes trying to facilitate some weakkneed democrats to vote for it. What are you going to retrain those people for comment at donalds . We give up our Manufacturing Base and their quality jobs would be going to retrain people for . A simple question for congress. Are we going to be a doormat for an all powerful secretive executive negotiating an agreement that gives the interest of the mic in people while consulting with 500 multinational corporations and freezing us out . Are we going to be a doormat for those multinational corporations that they ship american jobs overseas or are we the peoples house going to stand up for the people of america and begin to write the inequities that have been brought upon us by all of these failed trade agreements. This is the key point for us. This is a turning point for america. We will not be a doormat. [applause] i forgot my queue. A call from the cwa. Berry colon present of the communications of america. Three things. This is the biggest coalition on trade ever. The biggest ever. The breadth of this is tens of millions of americans and we heard the list from rose at the beginning. We are prepared in every district to work as a coalition not silent as labor or farmers or consumers or environmentalists but together to talk about what the Global Economy should be and how it can work for all of this. Second america will never see a raise for american working families if we continue to make trade deals like we have been 20 years of nafta. 80 of americans have had no raise in 30 years. We cant stop that just with the minimum wage so we support it. We have to stop trade deals. We can only move in one direction. We look at a city like detroit and the bankruptcy and detroit. Our members are 90 service tech. Every one of our members and detroit hightech or lowtech note that trade policy that devastated detroit devastates their lives also. They can get a raise when people dont have a job. Our members in st. Louis and ferguson note that the root causes of ferguson lie in the shutdowns in st. Louis. Until we connect the dots in this coalition with these members of congress and we say loudly are worth we again stand right now this is the president , mrs. Mr. Mcconnell and Speaker Boehner and the u. S. Chamber of commerce in the business roundtable. We are humble about what we face but we are tens of millions of americans and we are committed that we are not going to have another raw deal and trade. We are going to come to the 21st century and negotiate trade deals that work for tens of millions of americans not just for hundreds of corporations. Now its my honor to introduce my brother from wisconsin who thinks this is a warm day in washington. Representative mark [applause] thank you brother cohen and it is a little bit balmy. I have followed trade long before it came to congress. For 27 years ive been a smallbusiness owner could have a Specialty Printing business a union shop and part of what we do is find americanmade products for people. Over the years ive watched a bad trade deal after bad trade deals send jobs overseas. Its almost impossible to find a pen thats made in the u. S. In fact and rock county wisconsin accounted paul ryan and i share a Representative Congress we still have parker pens and in 2010 the last job left to mexico because of bad trade deals. We have seen jobs go away and wages go down and it is time the public has to say which Means Congress has to have a say in fasttrack away. If the trade is as good as they say lets hear how good it is and share the details. Theres a reason why its a negotiated secret and why we cant find out the provisions around the environment and Consumer Protections. We need to have our say in congress and we cant support fasttrack. We have to let the public have their say. [applause] i am very happy to introduce a congresswoman who has been here for a lot longer than me and has done a lot of Amazing Things in Congress Representative barbara lee from the great state of california. [applause] thank you very much congressman pocan and thank you for your leadership in congress mom and delauro giving us the opportunity today to speak out but more importantly to work against fasttrack and these trade deals that are bad for all American Workers. As a representative from california beautiful 13th Congressional District i have the honor and privilege to represent one of our nations busiest seaports and airports. International trade and commerce is critical to the economy in my district and trade can be critical and critical to americas economy. It can be good when its there when its open, when its transparent, when it creates goodpaying jobs at home. However i joined the vast majority of americans from both parties in opposing fasttrack Transpacific Partnerships. I oppose fasttrack because i oppose bad trade which of course it is. American workers, American Families and american businesses and especially in communities of color are going to continue to be hurt. We can and we should craft trade deals that deal with growing the American Economy and creating jobs here at home. Many of these jobs which we lost as it relates to nafta came from california. In fact communities of color mind you were disproportionately hurt by nafta and the United States china trade deals. Make no mistake 35 of jobs lost to china which totaled over 1 million american jobs were from communities of color. This is outrageous. After most workers lost their jobs their situation grew even worse. When those workers found another job they suffered nearly 30 cuts in their wages totaling more than 10 billion per year. We continue to see poverty rates in the africanamerican and Latino Community grow. Jobs and wages lost to offshoring continue to prevent these communities from Building Wealth and working into the middle class. So tpp is bad for everyone. At the United States is going to pursue a Free Trade Agreement Congress Needs to have full public debate and hearings so the deal is fair and the American People know whats in it. That is why congress is so important to these deals. Otherwise people have no voice. They have no say on the trade policies that affect their livelihoods. So we need to take fasttrack off the table. We need to do that right away. And we need to Start Talking about creating goodpaying jobs for American Workers and American Families here in america. Im very proud and honored now to bring forth my colleague who is the cochair of the congressional progressive caucus who has led the fight with lowwage workers to raise the standard of living for good jobs, congressman keith ellison. [applause] i had a constituent call me the other day and he said you know i have heard some things about this Transpacific Partnership and im concerned about it. You need to send me a copy of that bill. [laughter] of course i cannot do that because i had never seen it. If they show you the bill at all they show you one little little title of that and then you cant take notes come you cant do anything. This is an invisible process. Each one of us represents somewhere in the neighborhood of 700,000 people and so when we are standing in front of you we are representing whole communities, several cities minneapolis being the biggest one of these people who sent me to congress expect that i will make decisions that are going to help them and are going to stop bills that are going to hurt them. Theres no way in the world i can support fasttrack abdicating my responsibility, my authority as a member of Congress Without being very clear on every single comma and the Transpacific Partnership and i have not seen it. If its so awesome let us see it but we cant so we are going to stop this thing. We are going to oppose it. We have a coalition to stop it and i have yet to hear anybody who supports this bill come forward and say this is a great thing and its going to be good for nafta and here is exactly why. That has not happened yet so im incredibly suspicious and im honored to be joining with my colleagues in and outside of congress to fight fasttrack. [applause] i would like to introduce to you marcy kaptur from the great state of ohio and awesome champion of fair trade. [applause] thank you thank you all for coming and im thrilled to join what my wonder for colleagues most of whom are junior to me in this institution and did not live through the nafta fight. Please sat on that consequentially think youre in the capital as it rained outside in john swinney walked up the stairs while the Largest Global corporations commanded a Central Command rules from the base of the capitalist cell. America will remember this night and we have remember. The people we represent remember remember. We know this is a big struggle and we know this is our moment to stop fasttrack and the outsourcing of millions of more jobs from this country. Since nafta passed this is an incredible figure. The United States has wrapped up 9. 5 trillion in trade deficits. We have a big chart to show that somewhere in this room and a loss of 47 million 500,000 outsourced jobs. The workers in Northern Ohio have seen the loss of over 5 Million Manufacturing jobs and wages have dropped for the average family 7000 a year. I have stood in places along with my colleagues like ohio and Michigan Avenue in the maquiladora in northern mexico where tried to out of buffalo relocated windshield wiper manufactured and we visited the homes of mexican workers who worked for a penny wage, penny wage jobs and lives in squalor. What kind of a gift is that to the world . I have stood in vietnam watching children, little boys under age standing with bare feet and is praying with lacquer and breathing in all of those fumes, hurting their own health for the future, for export to the United States and today as i stand here is an ohio and two plans, u. S. Steel and the rate of ohio has announced over 700 layoffs in the Company Called hugo boss which is a German Company which has an outlet in brooklyn ohio has given pink slips to over 170 workers. He has lived and breathed these issues. Click thank you. Those are from ohio. We have a lot of people in this coalition