And one of the most amazing coincidences in pakistan a man who was at the exact same place of a speech was actually shot and killed by supposedly a lone gunman. The individual was shot several times it even though he was subdued by the crowd and take it away they shot him six times. See you would never know who was behind it to. So today there is speculation of the 56 years before because of id honor of that private mr. Because i found it interesting and they are assassinated to take to the Military Hospital if they try to receive him and revive him successfully but 20 years later the doctor there receives benazir bow benazir bhutto. Lot of coincidences. Host with that we will wrap up. Thank you very much for joy to be here tonight. Year, jeremy hill, dirty wars. A break to welcome you here this morning to miami books are international. Those of you joining us to Chapman Center in the lou harrison and absurd as a volunteer for many, many years. Its happy anniversary to the 30 years here in our community. [applause] we are very grateful to art software in particular, American Airlines and always shall. Id also like to recognize the friends of the fair, many who are here in our first couple of rows. Thank you so much for your generosity in support. We look forward to your continuing to be a friend for many, many years. Miami Book Fair International and Miami Dade College work handinhand to bring this book fair to us every year. Its a wonderful, cultural affair that thousands and thousands of fairgoers are enriched by each and every year. Thank you all. Come in, have a seat. As you now, our sessions are being streamed live by cspan. Please help us keep this they are going for another 30 years. We usually ask you to turn off your cell phones, but we are going to ask you keep them on and take the nod and make a donation if youre selling high. 30dollar donation to recognize 30 years book here has been at this end to see what tax mbsi to 41444, we would be most grateful for your generosity and support. At this time, as some of you are still getting seated, i would like to bring to the podium someone who might follow introductions of our author. His name is mr. Robert weisberg, a longtime civil rights attorney here in our community. Mr. Weisberg . [applause] been a good morning. Its a real honor to be here today is to be able to introduce george packer, Jeremy Scahill and dan balz. [applause] going to server does do a quick little introduction of each of them right up front and then we can get charity. George is on the end of the table is a longtime staff writer for the new yorker magazine. His 2005 book, decide date on american iraq based on event that led up to 2003 invasion of iraq and what happened afterwards was recognized for the New York Times book review of hong kong bucks were cloaked about your church is also the author of novels in the play betrayal powertrain offbroadway for five months in 2008 and will tell an award for outstanding play. This year, church of the faithful book is published this book in large part details narratives from various people in describing how institutions of the country of change in the late 1970s to the president and how that is impacted americans. In preparing for this, i looked at what individuals, authors, others had said about the unwinding and prominent and accomplish others have described the unwinding as original comment i said, courageous, essential, unique, irresistible, extraordinary, gorgeous, exurban comella gave him a sweeping, powerful. I could go on, but you get the point. This past wednesday church was awarded the National Book award for 2013 for nonfiction. [applause] for those of you dont mind the National Book award is described as a book that the oscars consumes. Next to Georges Jeremy i have to follow that . [laughter] Jeremy Scahill this investigative journalist. Jeremy has been a longtime contributor to the new program democracy now and correspondent for the nation magazine. As a journalist, jeremy is reported from all over the world, including afghanistan, iraq, somalia, yemen and the former lucas audio. He has twice won the prestigious george polk award for and reporting. In 1998 for his investigation in the chevron corp. s role in the killing of two nigerians and environmental activist and in 2008 for his New York Times bestselling book, blackwater, the rise of the worlds most powerful mercenary army, which exposes the private military contractor blackwater. Jeremys investigative work has led several congressional hearings and is also resulted in jeremy testifying before congress on u. S. Covert military actions. Jeremys newest book, dirty wars the world is a battlefield is a monumental book which takes the reader inside u. S. Military covert action, worldwide and the consequences of those actions. Dirty wars has also been made into a documentary which jeremy cowrote, produced in a rebate. Jeremy frequently appears on various Public Affairs programs, Public Affairs programs, just as rachel nadeau, anothers. [applause] next to me right here is dan balz. Dan is chief correspondent at the Washington Post. He has served as the papers national editor, political editor, White House Correspondent and southwest correspondent. Dan is coauthor of 96 title storming the gates, protest politics republican revival. In 2009, didnt cowrote with the late hans in the bestseller, the battle for america 2008 paris of an extraordinary election about the 2008 president ial election. And this year, dan wrote the book collision 2012 election in america. Collision 2012 provides incredibly detailed, rich insight into both the Election Campaign and makes for fascinating reading. In 2011, dean received the white house course on its association or miss but the word for deadline presidency and National Press club award for political analysis. Dan is a regular panelist on Washington Week in the daily run down and a frequent guest on other Public Affairs shows. Please join me in welcoming george, jeremy indiana. [applause] so, we are going to do a little curly mouth. Quite soon we can turn it over and get it going both ways. The year 2008 came up in each of the introduction and he was then i began to think about a book that would try to understand what happened that year with these huge pillars of american the economy and our society collapsing. From automakers to banks, Housing Market, commercial and investment banks and in a sense, the political system which seemed to be on the cusp of a new era of reform with the rise of barack obama had a thing proved more illusory than real. I had just come back uncovering the iraq war for several years. The failure to american institutions was on my mind before that. I wanted to see how the lives of people at home or effect did by these forces. The more i thought about it, i realized this is really the story of my adult life. This doesnt go back to 2006 or 9 11 or even the clinton years. This is a generation long trajectory that led to the epic events of 2008. There are a number of phenomenon that he can around the late 70s that have been made things shaping our lives from wage stagnation in the middleclass to deindustrialization of the outsourcing of manufacturing, the decline of labor unions, Information Technology and the Consumer Internet and consumer computers. Political polarization and the return of the Republican Party towards the extreme right. Along with that, the ability of washington to really function as it did when i was younger. Above all, the rest of inequality, which all of these first is have contributed to economic inequality cosigning paradoxically with greater social equality. More groups included in american life. More stratification along class lines. So this is a big, big story. Theres many good books from which i learned a lot attracted historically, politically and policy, economically. I tried it first to add my own version of those books is a pile and quickly grew exhausted with the thought of it because its such a huge topic. I have big ambitions. To write a big ambitious book, you need to find a small way into a tiered you cant take it on whole or also drown in it. So over the course of the next two years after to disney, i began to travel around the country and made americans in different ways. Sometimes serendipity, sometimes through design, his lies were part of a story, who were sort of on the receiving end of debate global and National Forces and decisions because these are not just blind forces. These are political decisionmaking Power Centers like wall street and washington that have created the greatest inequality weve seen in a hundred years. The moment of clarity came when i read i dont have to write a big history. I can tell the stories of these people. Dean price in the piedmont region of north carolina, a truckstop entrepreneur who had a sheen of gas station and fast food joints that began to crumble with the financial crisis in the recession in turn for salvation, almost religious salvation to the fallow tobacco fields all around him and began to see canola as the answer, which could create bio diesel fuel instead of imported oil, which made it impossible for him to compete with the big chain and also the oil thrown out at night by all the barbecue joints that could also be turned into bio diesel. Tammy thomas who is a lifelong Assembly Line worker in youngstown ohio, while that figure is in a death spiral. Faster and larger magic in some ways than detroit as a result of the death of the steel industry. The pillars of the society that depended on it. Her job went overseas just issues getting close to her retirement and she remade herself as a Community Organizer right at the moment the Community Organizer became famous as a president ial candidate. Just comment and who is a lifelong washington operative, which some like a fate worse than death and in some ways the days, but in fact, his career is tremendously eliminating and showing forces that have shaped washington over the course of this generation long history. He went from being an idealistic army be to a rather cynical obvious, we realize the real game is in lobbying and did very well out of it and with the financial crisis, saw all that was wrong with that money in washington kind of coming back to haunt him and all of a sudden he went back into government to try to enact real wall street reform legislation in the senate as the chief of staff to the senator who took a waitandsee. That didnt work out, but the effort is golf was worth recording. These people had crossed my radar and became the protagonists of what became the unwinding. The hard part was to figure out how all this fits together. Theres the whole story of tampa, florida, not far from here. It is huge rises of this housing machine of growth monster and then total collapse. Almost overnight you could see it like the looney tunes are going out into midair, thinking the Housing Market is Still Holding it up and then collapsed. Sit tampa stories the big part of it. Theres also a Silicon Valley aspect of the book because you have to look at Silicon Valley has this weird anomalous Success Story in the middle of so much trouble. In addition and forgive me, but i had a lot of material to corel. Theres 10 famous americans whose stories i wanted to tell because i wanted this to be mostly from the bottomup. You also have to look at the tops of society to understand the people in forces that shaped these years. Newt gingrich represents politics. Demott represents business. Robert rubin financed Oprah Winfrey and her team them and on. At a certain moment, as the deadline was looming, i had to figure out, what is all this . Ive got more than i can handle and jeremy absher had moments of truth along the same line. Its called overreporting and you have to do it. If you are efficient, it means you are not deep enough into the story. You have to lose yourself for a while. And i was lost. But then i begin to think there must be a way to tell these stories without conventional forms because what i had was too unconventional to say. And i looked back in Literary History to one of my favorite works of american fiction, the u. S. A. Trilogy for a guide to how to tell a big historical story. His trilogies about the first three decades. To do it in the way through peoples lives. That gave me the confidence that you could create something coherent out of all of this polyphony. Its a very kaleidoscopic work. So when you read the unwinding as they hope youre well, you leave them for a while. You need Newt Gingrich all of a sudden. His presence might seem odd at first and then you begin to see this is the late 70s and early 80s. Here is Newt Gingrich who maybe did more than anyone to create the toxic political role that we live in. You then go back to one of the care received that before and so on and it takes you 35 years through their life stories and the largest story of america to reach the present. I cant say its a story of shining success because it not, but i dont think its depressing in the sense that these people have tremendous energy, humor, creativity, a kind of growing object to be about themselves, which is coming in now, the only benefit to getting older. It is i have to say kind of middleaged story. Obvious people come from. Worn around the late 50s or 60s and i needed that because i needed their lives to carry the weight of all that history that you can send the late 70s and leads to the present. So that gives you a brief mouth of the unwinding. Im going to turn it over to jeremy and then we can do the questions. [applause] did you interview Newt Gingrich . I am new to the Tampa Convention last year and had one question for him. He is at the vips did not have the benefit. Transition from it into serious journalism. [laughter] you know, when Newt Gingrich as speaker of the house, he would hold his daily speakers briefing that i believe with erudite cspan. He canceled it eventually because amy goodman, my mentor from democracy now confronted him on Live National television about his purported use of the word to describe hillary clinton, who at the time was the first lady. The Washington Post did a piece on it and the catalyst gingrich cant ditch bitch comment. We are in a moment right now, not just in this country, but globally where theres an emerging war against journalists in an country is theres a direct work and struggle us. In mexico, almost every week journalists are gunned down, either by narco cartels or by force is associated with mexican government. There are several dozen journalists missing right now and area. Austin tice, a Young American who went to Georgetown Law School and was a marine who then went on to be quite a good reporter for mcclatchy newspaper has been missing for over a year. James foley and other independent reporters just passed the oneyear anniversary of his eduction somewhere in syria. Journalists are regularly murdered in amalia. In yemen. I tell the story of my book. There is a german missing of the della hershiser a, who is the first journalist in the world to report that the obama admitted duchenne had initiated a Bombing Campaign in yemen. In december 2009, president obama authorize the Cruise Missile straight on what he was told was not paid a Training Facility in the village of how much of the end that there was a target that the joint special operations command, the elite units of the u. S. Military, the people that killed Osama Bin Laden trek to senior al qaeda figure to this particular place and there was a Training Camp there. Of course obama and his administration began expanding the use of what the nice drum, but they didnt have any drugs available for the operation because they were being used in pakistan at the time. So the author is to Cruise Missile strike. These cluster bombs, which are basically like flying landmines. I first saw the aftermath of the cluster bomb attack in yugoslavia in 1999 during the nato air war over kosovo over the issue of kosovo. The niche marketplace in serbia was hit by cluster bombs that around and people were shopping at the green market. I went there in the aftermath of that inside human beings shredded in the ground by these weapons in most countries in the world agree they should be banned in the United States continues to use them. For the launch Cruise Missiles and cluster bombs on what they believe is an al qaeda Training Facility. The Yemeni Government issues a press release the next day, saying that its forces had carried out a series of strikes against al qaeda targets in that they killed 34 al qaeda militants. The