rino serves no purpose. tepid applause. people are saying, typical rino. probably voting for jeb. rono. i like parts of everybody. i wish it could be franken stein and i could pull this part and this part and put them together and create -- again, like the fact that trumpes chews all jaron. the reason why you find him charming because he says things the way a guy at a bar would say it and it's kind of entertaining, but he is very repetitive, without any specifics. without any specifics you become repetitive. you're like a classic rock band with three hits. you go from fairground to fairground, here's our china, immigration, that guy's an idiot. but he speaks you. i think rubio is the most articulate and -- but he seems every debate to keep getting younger. i don't understand that. but i like kashich, except kashich was constrained in the last debate. i said before, he's like the guy front of you at the rental car center, mad that it's not a convertible sebring, and you just flew in on an all-night flight and just want to get your car but he is demanding his convertible sebring. he had that look. can't just take the hard top? we all want to go home. >> well played. greg, it's been an honor to have you here, we'll invite you back as many times as you can come. >> thank you. thank you. >> and ladies and gentlemen, if you'll remain in your seats while going and his guests clear the room, that would be fantastic. if you don't have a book you can buy them in the lobby or the museum store, greg will sign as many as you want, and so enjoy yourself the rest of your evening and come back to see us again. [inaudible conversations] -- at 7030, duringed we have two bank systems in the u.s., one for the poor and another for everybody else. at 8:00 a p.m. eastern, war veteran and quadruple amputee, travis mills, recalls his service and recovery. then at 9:00 eastern on afterwards, pulitzer prize wing journalist reports on the big business of college football. at 10:00, a talk about global citizenship. that all happens tonight on c-span2's booktv. >> here on the campus of miami-dade college is "washington post" reporter joby warrick him book is called "black flags. the rise of isis. "what happenin' 1999 -- what happened in 1999 that led to the creation of isis. >> guest: there's a central character in the tale and his name is sarqwai you saw saw the movie "american sniper" this is the guy northwesterns were after that got us in some trouble. he got oust jail early in 1999 there was an amnesty in jordan. he had been a prisoner, serving 15-year prison sentence, supposed to be there until he was a relatively old man and is sprung and his entire group is sprung. they leave jordan, head off to afghanistan, and is is the beginning point of this long story that leads to us isis. >> host: who was abu al star car we before this time. >> our least likely person to lead a terrorist movement. started out as a nobody. a high school dropout, thug, a criminal, he hat tattoos, heavy drinker, not religious at all. >> host: lived in jordan. >> guest: lived in jordan, fairly moderate country and middle class home but gets radicalized by going off to fight. goes afghanistan to fight the communists and that was the beginning of his jihadi journey and comes up with crazy ideas even by jihaddist standard-wanting to do very violent things and reform society, and this is the core personality around which isis later evolve jazz when did he die? >> guest: he died in 2006. we got a lucky break. took us two years of hard hunting to be able to track him down, and he had built this really incredibly successful insurgency, and very nearly drove us out of iraq because of all the killings and created a civil war. we got his number. got some good intelligence tracked him down to a house in iraq and dropped a cowl of missiles on his hideout. >> host: what was the turning point in his career? >> guest: he had a couple big breaks, one was a am in the cities and the other our own government in 2003 made him famous. he was at a dead end in his career, small terrorist group but the's administering developedded to make him to the poster child for connection between saddam hussein and al qaeda. so make this argument they were linked. not to true at all but by making the says and literally putting his picture in front of the u.s. security council in 2003, we made him a hero and gave him a platform, which i the war in iraq, which he wanted to fight americans. >> host: joby warrick is our guest. phone numbers on the screen. there are other ways of getting ahold of us. you can't get through on the phone lines. there are other ways as well on social media,@booktv is our twitter handle and facebook.com/book tv. you can leave a comment, miami book fair. joby warrick, it's isis. it's isil, islamic state, al qaeda, iraq, al qaeda, what is the arc and the sequence of all these names and all these different organizations? >> guest: all comes from the same tree which is this fanatical jihaddist movement that rows from the afghan civil wars. all these arab muslims went to afghanistan to fight the communists, and from that insurgency we got a group of men who felt they were successful, they defeated a super power, and they had this global vision of being able to take control, to restore the muslim world to this caliphate that once existed hundreds of years ago, and so it was -- that is really where it started and then so many different variation, some distinct, like isis, but all come from the same family. >> host: what's the role of jordan in how has jordan figured into all of this? >> guest: jordan is kind of an irritant, let's say to the islamists because jordan, like many of the other countries of the modern middle east, didn't exist 120 years ago. they're created out of whole cloth by the colonial powers elm tend of world war i the british and french took a map and carved it up and created places like jordan, that was just a part of the ottoman empire, and they have given the islamists a reason to want to push back and defeat these countries that they feel shouldn't exist. their attention has been toward these local governments jordannans, lebanese, and israel their issue in one enemy. like to eradicate that country altogether. >> host: you open the book with the hanging or the execution of a woman in jordan. who was she. >> guest: this woman was someone that most of news america, if we heard of her at all would have forgotten about her. actually an earlier version of the paris attacks that took place in 2005 in jordan, where some of 0 zarqwi's people were send to this country not at war, went to series of hotels and blew them up with sad sad bombers in sage night. one bomber survived because her vest didn't go off happens. this woman who got arrest, interrogated, the jordanians and the americans are hopeful she will lead them star okay we but she can't do that and this forgotten about until the recent chapter with isis, they captured jordan yap pilot and they wanted to swap prisoner ins, and she was the one they wanted to make the exchange, changing the jordanian pilot for this jihadi whom who had been in prison for 50 years. >> host: what's been the effect of brutality of the solve the things isis and the jihaddists have done. >> guest: it's shocking to us when we see these images. beheadings, even drownings, stoning. it's from another time. it doesn't feel like it's a human reaction to something, something a human being can do. for them it's very effective because, you intimidate, you frighten your enemies and you also excite your base. so the one they want or their side, this iscap -- this candy for them. >> host: can you draw a line between 199, invasion of iraq, and what is happening in syria today? are they related? >> guest: i think absolutely they are. first of alling are without the star -- zarqwi we would not have isis. so you can see these dots being linked together from the release of this guy to the iraqi invasion to all the missteps and mistakes made along the way, and then arab spring, coming at a moment when isis was essentially contained to a small part of iraq, didn't have any territory, but here comes the arab spring this, syrian civil war and this becomes a new call to arms, new life for these radicals and that's really how isis came to be as we know it today. >> host: in your view have we let our allies down in the middle east? >> guest: we certainly have disappointed a lot of them in the region, some have disappointed us as well. i'm thinking most live eye jordan, which is a small country of 6 million people with isis literally on two sides of the border in syria and iraq, also a country with a sunni population that there's some inside jordan that would be sympathetic to isis and they asked to us give them more help, help them with a the huge. >> referee: population, half million refugees from syria are in jordan today. we see the problem thursday europe and jordan amplified many times beyond that, yet they struggle to get basic resource's feed and clothe people and have to be part of this coalition attacking isis from the air, and they don't have the munitions because of the smart weapons and things they should have to filing the enemy. >> host: joby warrick spends time in the book talking about and with robert orr, the former u.s. ambassador to syria. let get your calls in here. let's begin with paul in huntington beach, california. you're on we author joby warrick weird. talking about isis and terrorism. >> caller: hi. thank you for taking my call. the internet. i would hasn't the internet been turned off in these countries? there's four wails a symbol dom in cable, ocean cape lab, satellite link, when i look at our leaders leaders and how stue people are, both bush administration and obama administration, at fighting this war ask deal iing with she's psychos you allow them to communicate with one another and allow them to reach out to the world and reach out to the four percent of the male population that is completely insane in any given society and you let them say, gee, come some be with us and you can kill and maim and be as crazy as you want to be, and we allow them to be on the internet -- >> host: all right, paul. >> guest: you have hit on a good question and it's been frustrating to all of white house watched this evel in the beginning there was freedom of access arguments being made, and so you see isis using twitter, using facebook, using instagram, with impunity, and do tricky thursdaying about using social media and we better at blocking them so they turned to other 0 other social media. right knew lot of their wireless network is a network out of southern turkey so still exploiting these avenues to be able too communicate with the rest of the world in a very powerful way and we managed to not really find a way to block them. i think going forward. try to find a way to defeat this movement, has be to fundamental to any strategy is to prevent them from being able too spread this garbage around the world, and it's -- -- you have to hoch that's a first step. >> host: a reminder to text in a message do that as well. don't call this number, it's just for texting. 202-717-9684. ahmed from click salt lake city. you're on booktv. >> caller: ey, thank you so much. i just want to make a couple points. first, i don't mean in any way -- i'm not referring anything to your guest but in general, it's very difficult for -- when people try to explain things they don't understand. we see all the time the isis, al qaeda, all these people, working people in suit -- orange suits beheading them. where did that come from? these people, wherever they are, both -- boko haram, all these people, basic islamic tenets which exemplify what happened in saudi arabia everybody friday after friday prayer, after mosque, people come out in big cities and watch the government behead people in public squares, chop their hands, because of theft. whip people hope to streets the united states called for moderate arabs, to -- [inaudible] --up number two -- >> host: we have to leave it at number one, thank you. joby warrick, please answer. >> guest: it is true. this is a fundamental theology that motivates isis, the religious core. they're teaching and doctrines close to the would lab by, sunni sect out of saudi arabia and contains harsh beliefs and interpretations that isis champions today. that's why men these beheadings took place a year ago, the western world was horrified. it wasn't that surprising or unusual to some of the gulf countries because they do live with this and beheading is countenanced by the koran, and by practicing traditions of the early muslim leaders. what is -- what isis managed to do is go off the reservation take what is really a fairly harsh and austere view of islam and take it further and ignore theological practices and norms when they want to when they warrant to burn a person alive, that's clearly against the koran. the koran enjoins against burning another human being and yet they manage to find a way to justify it so they're taking core issues and twisting it and make it even more violent. >> host: this is a text message from rob in honolulu: i sis has no air force no navy, nor armored battalion. why are they an ongoing threat. why is there no will in the west to destroy them? >> guest: that's a really good question. we talk about these no-fly zones for syria, and it's interesting in a way because isis doesn't have an air force or navy. they have quite a lot of equipment and weapons and certainly lots of money but don't have big weapon systems and yet we haven't been able to push them out after months of air strikes and the coalition has 60 member nations. so i think what is striking is the fact that they -- first of all when they take over territory there, is no resistance. we haven't seen any anbar awakening, no sons sons of iraq movement. people locally arising to fight them because their ability to control local provinces and exert their well over territories, nobody champ -- challenges it. so until they're a way to challenge them in their heartland it's going to be impossible to defeat this ideology. >> host: nobody kansas, go ahead. >> caller: hi, peter. i love your show. my curiosity stems from the extension of what is called the solafi jihad, which is the extension of -- how that is prepared globally. how this current geopolitical environment shaping up? we have the power blocks, the russians coming in support of the assad regime, and the iranian, chinese, russian, alliance, that is moving toward the support of the assad regime, against the u.s.-backed saudi arabian, qatary, other interests, and what is the role of saudi arabia's rise to isis and have they been part of this jihad that is increasingly being spread role inly through africa and asia. >> host: we'll get joby to answer that but how long have you been following this story and the developments in this area? >> caller: i used to teach at the defense language institute, where on a daily basis i was interacting for the last six and a half years dish spent six and a half years in mon ray at the defense language institute so i was dealing with people that were coming and going, commuting back and forth from afghanistan and iraq like some people go from kansas city to chicago daily. >> host: thank you, sir. >> guest: one of to great places in the the world to live. monterrey, must have been an amazing period. what is complicated is the fight, that would do with isis, is the fact that these geopolitical blocs are so significant expo posed to one another. the hardest part about resolving the syrian conflict the fact you have russians and robbans on one side and the saudis and americans and other arab states on the other side. so how do you bring them together, come up with a new government in syria that would be acceptable to both sites, and or even how the u.n. resolution, which seemed to be impossible to do the one thing that is hopeful at this moment is the fact you have these powerful interests talking to each other, and theirs meetings underway, very weekend, where these governments are trying to find a way to find concerted -- a way to have concert leverage against isis in a way that hasn't exited before. and if the right people are in the room right now talking so they can figure out a way to unite, at least on common goals like getting rid of isis, then maybe something good can come out of it. >> host: just to follow up on that you. save the right people in the right room and talking, et cetera. this is a text message from the 718 area code. over the last decade, isis al qaeda problem has continued to grow in all reality. can i ever be truly contained or eliminated. >> that's a very good question because there are two things going on simultaneously. one is an effort finally to try to drive them out of their heartland to end this de facto state that has developed in syria and western iraq. even if you citied in doing that -- that's a really big if and a complicated challenge -- the horse is out of the barn in the sense that this ideology is now existing and multiple states, at least 12 we know of have isis cells that are active in some ways communicating with the central branch. shut them down one place, does that mean they'll go to another? that the chaology owning of our lifetime. >> host: bill, west hartford, connecticut, you're on with joby warrick, his recent book "black flags i." >> caller: yesful i tuned in at late so you may have discussed this or may not have. let me get right to my question. i want to go from 15 years ago today, almost exactly today to now, november 2000 to now to briefly ask you a question about where this all began and goes back to the election of 2000 between george w. bush and al gore. if al gore had won that election, al gore would have probably had the afghanistan war because of 9/11, which happened the following september but would not have invaded iraq. so my point is, isn't it true that because of the republicans and george w. bush -- i'm saying that's as a liberal progressive democrat myself -- that george w. bush's invasion of iraq, as here able as a dictator as saddam hussein was, at least having saddam hussein in iraq, kept that as a stable country without isis emerging. so is the iraqi war had not happened and if george w. bush and dick cheney had not invade iraq or al gore had won, there was no iraq war, would there be -- >> host: all right, bill, we government the point. that's bill in connecticut. >> guest: that a really good question, and as a journalist i try to avoid putting political labels on it, but the book argues and i strongly believe that the iraq invasion was really the original sin. not just the invasion itself which gave the jihaddists this cause they'd been looking for, particular particularly star could we, and the sin of omake, not having security operates in place, dismanning the baathist party which anybody who was a professional inside iraq, in the early 2000s, that be a might of the baath party. dismantling the armed forces and you have overnight a country with a huge security vacuum and a very angry disenfranchised elite population that was happy to help an injunior coming in 'plenty of iraqis would have fought the americans but star car we is able to melt this religious extremism with this iraqi discontent and bringing the two together turned out to be a very powerful screw, and those people that started that movement in 2004, 2006, that's isis today. the same ideology from the same individuals, abdul, the french terrorist, he cut his teeth in that early stage of the iraq insurgency so this is all very relevant to the situation we have in isis today. >> host: randy in louisiana, we have couple minutes left with joby warrick. >> caller: yes. i can remember the whole instance of the ship cole. could you touch upon that? >> guest: what you see there, that was an al qaeda attack, and it was -- i think it reflected the difference between al qaeda and the isis folks we're seeing today. al qaeda picked a strategic target and a highly symbolic one, a u.s. aircraft carrier or u.s. navy ship, rather, and putting a big hole in and it creating images on television that made al qaeda look very powerful and it took us quite a