By u. S. And nato troops, the taliban scattered around afghanistan, but they eventually regrouped in the now retaken large portions of the country. This is about 90 minutes. [inaudible conversations] good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this session at the carnegie endowment. The arrest this morning and im a study from the very beginning that this is the organization and ill say a few words about it. So what this session is about is the launching of his boat, the taliban revival violence and extremism on the pakistanafghanistan frontier. This is indeed a timely book appeared or indeed not so much a family book. I dont know because we arrive at the end of the cycle. This is the cycle of western intervention in afghanistan. This is not the end of the conflict. A musty flavor of propaganda, this is not like the most. So the end of 2001, a lot of people died in afghanistan and people from the region. All of that was made to eradicate. I know the focus these days in the country is
Stories in fact the economist story was almost word for word my story in the wow Washington Times but they were all afraid to break it. And this fear in western europe about exposing what is really going on, and even since that time, i have been given some grief by some of our old friends who didnt much like the fact that i did this. And to me, its troublesome. This is a little personal because ive been more so theres no question that youre right about that, and the antifracking effort in europe is rim is in sent of reminiscent of receive russian propaganda because its in their interests to prevent it. And that is trumped and this goes to maybe to dougs point and others the reality of russia versus the soviet union. Maybe the difference isnt so great but may end up in the same place. That is that putin and his friends have transformed post cold war russia into a quasimiddle Eastern Trust state which i totally dependent on its ability to sell energy to the west because that how they sup
Well, i think we have ignored it too long already. Its one of the big mistakes we make is assuming its a single block. There are billion 600 Million People in the muslim world, half in four countries, bangladesh, india, snowshower ya, indonesia and pakistan, and life for muslims is very defendant in each country. In the arab world, daytoday life is different in moore morocco than saudi arabia, and even if you assume theres one percent that has very stringent interpretation of islam, thats 16 Million People. A whole country, and not being engaged in the ideological and theological war with them, not dealing with elements that are reconcilable within the islamic world is a tragedy that is going to come to bite us and it may not be as doug said an existential threat, but its a threat where you can see casualties and hundreds of thousands through terrorist activity, and its something we have to worry about a great, great deal. Okay. Were out of time, but ive got a final question for the pa