Good evening. Were deeing highed have join us erre van dick, investigateoff journalist focusing on terrorism in the middle east region and our moderator, Senior Vice President of programs at World Affairs. Were recording tonights program so please take a moment to silence your cell phones. Im tim, the Program Officer here at World Affairs. If you enjoy the discussion and are interested to learn more about the organization, ill be around after the program. I want to turn it over to our modern rater. So, good evening, everything, and thank you for joining us. Its my great pleasure to introduce our guest this evening, erre van dick, journalist, author and cbs news consultant who covers afghan and pakistan. He has authored a book called captive my time as a prisoner of the taliban and another work in afghan. He is also written for such publications as the New York Times, newsweek, and national geographic. And in 1981, while working as a correspondent for the New York Times, van dyk lived with hi mujahideen. He was a senior legal for the Carnegie Council for ethics and International Affairs while a senior fellow in 2008 he went to afghanistan and pakistan to research the taliban for a book. But he was subsequent subsequently captured by taliban and imprisoned for 45 days. Becoming the second american journalist to be captured. His most recent book, the detroit, my journey into the labyrinth of political kidnapping, discusses the political and economic motives of kidnapping. He is currently an adjunct certainly fellow on the council on Foreign Relations and joiningsing us here tonight to talk about the trade and the geopolitics of kidnapping and the way in which terrorist groups hey been using kidnapping. So, welcome and thank you for joining us. To start we probably need to understand what made you want to write the trade. What caused you to need to go back and think hard about the way in which kidnapping is being used. Guest i think the best way for me to answer that is if you recall, just before Steven Sotloff was murdered by isis he wrote a letter in his cell with jim foley and peter and allen and others, to his parents, and in that letter he saideverybody has two lives. The second one begins when you realize you only have one. And i was, as someone told me, as the greeks say, twice fated. Survived my kidnapping, and i felt and feel that it have an obligation as one who survived to keep alive the names of those who were murdered, to speak on behalf of those who did survive and who dont want to talk about it, and to tell the world what is now what i consider a knew and extremely potent new form of political warfare. As karla said i was in the next person kidnap the second person kidnapped. The first person was daniel pearl. And daniel pearl was held for ten days to two weeks witch dont know exactly when. But he was slaughtered by al qaeda. And the ransom demand was that the u. S. Provide to pakistan the f16s that we had provided to them that we had sold to them but failed to deliver as well as to provide better treatment for men in guantanamo which is a rather strange demand for a terrorist group. When you think about it. That was the beginning of political terrorism after 9 11. And i was the next person, as karla said, kidnapped after him. Ill do this real quickly, but when my book, captive came out in 2010, a few things happened. One, i was giving a talk in new york before a Journalist Society in greenwich village, and at the end i was signing books and a man came up to me with this thengirlfriend, now wife, and he said, you said tonight this it what an mi6 intelligence agent said to me, we did Everything Possible to prevent a second second daniel pearl and then he said to me, this young man, he asked me do you think you would have survived if you were jew wish . No one ever asked me anything like that. Began to think. And sometime a few months before then, daniel pearls father had written an article in the wall street journal in which he said, i feel that my son has died in vain, and i took awhile but then i wrote him a letter and i said, no. Im alive because of your son. And they invited me out to los angeles to see them. And i went out to see them. And in some way it was easier to cross the mountains into pakistan to see them, and we had lunch together and spend two days together, and i said that i thought of daniel pearl when they took the knife out in my execution proposed execution, two of them but the dig difference and its all the difference in the world and dont have a plight to talk about it is that my case they put it back. And but when i the camera was rolling and i looked at the man and i said, okay, lets do it, its you and me issue thought of daniel pearl and nicholas berg, who was the next person kidnapped after daniel pearl. Kidnapped in baghdad in 2004 and beheaded. So, i began a trip because of this man in 2010, who came up to me after hi book came out, to go back and find out this is the first reason there are others why daniel pearl was really kidnapped, and look deep lie into his story, which i didnt feel was really ever brought out, in which i found a lot about and write about in the book. So there were multiple reasons why i went back. And theres one final reason, to in 2012, i was as karla asked me this, i was working for cbs. Was prevented from going east of turkey, and people are inherently afraid you are going to get in trouble again, and you are seen as a bit one man said to my, toxic, and cbs would you me less and less, afraid of what i might say or that i might embarrass people, and so another fellow named john, who was kidnapped, his driver was killed and he was kidnapped in pakistan, by a secular group, different from the taliban, and he said to me, were like manchurian candidates, that people think we have been brain washed. And you live with that and more than anything else youre a victim. Youre always a victim. When i went to see the pearls a newspaper report said to my, thats what i theyre going to say in your obituary, youre a victim. What is it like for living a life where youre always seen as a victim . So in order to get over that, become, say, man again. We know this probably comes as a bit of a shock, difficult to comprehend, please dont think. [inaudible] but we have found said to close your case. If we find reason to open it, we will. I sat there and i said they got away with it. The men who were involved in it, they got away with it. Its up to me too go back and find out the truth. So, those are the things that led me on this journey. Tell us a bit more about the number of political kidnappings and why they started to occur in larger numbers paid we dont actually, i think here about these cases as much as we shoul should. Its not a subject in the prospect, how many people are being held and what is the motive for increasing political kidnapping. I dont know exactly who people are being held today. Its important to distinguish between political kidnappings and other. If you work for shell oil and you work off the coast of nigeria, your likelihood of getting kidnapped is much higher. Those are political kidnappings. Today al qaeda has a protocol for dealing with political kidnappings. Used to get 250,000. Person and now its up, the most recent one was a swedish person who was god, a tourist and he was 10 million. It is very much a business, but, to your question, the exact number of political kidnapped victims, those being held today is secret. I dont know. The fbi would have that information. They work closely with the cia and fight with the cia and compete with the cia. We all know that story, if the fbi and the cia had worked together maybe the information would have prevented 911. That still exists. One reason they continue this, of course its tribal warfare in washington that they want a larger budget and greater power but one fbi agent said to me the cia does not have to testify in court and they can operate under the radar and without any accountability which i think im getting ahead of myself, but its extremely dangerous that President Trump has said now that the cia like the American Military will have the ability to take the gloves off to fight in afghanistan were going to give greater power to the cia, greater latitude to use drones. In 2002, february 2002, i happen to cover this case. I was there at the time. Daniel pearls case was the First Political kidnapping after 911. He was kidnapped in pakistan. There were about 26 people involved in his kidnapping. Most of them were pakistani but it was an al qaeda operation. Many people feel that it was al qaedas way of announcing to the world that they existed. We know what they just did a few weeks before in 911, but it was in the political world, in the political kidnapping world, this was their way of saying we are here. They introduced a new form of political warfare. Kidnapping started about 1983 in hezbollah taking other journalists in beirut, but post 911, which is the focus now, those people, all of those held by hezbollah was never a ransom demand. They were used as ponds against United States and france and that also was the first time the second part or the second side to the twosided warfare in that is suicide bombing. That is when they bombed the Marine Corps Barracks and the french paratrooper barrett spread the First Political suicide bombing in the afghan pakistani theater took place in pakistan in 1995. It was orchestrated by the head of al qaeda and its a very interesting back story to that. I would come to that in a moment. The second kidnapping was niclas byrd. Young entrepreneur from pennsylvania, went to iraq and he was kidnapped by a city, a jordanian city and he comes out, he, this is the introduction about al qaeda into this and ill talk about this more in a minute. He went from jail to pakistan and then he went to a refugee camp from which the Guerrilla Group in the southern philippines got its name, trained their and then developed his jihad credentials. He went to iraq and most people here will know the story, in order to create al qaeda and again in iraq, he had to really assert himself, this vicious war against the shiite but he kidnapped niclas for thereby introducing al qaeda to the world. I was at cbs in the newsroom the day that his video was shown and the argument between the National Editor and another editor of similar stature over how much of this video are you going to show. I do remember the do remember td political kidnapping, a form of warfare used against the week by the strong. The next was in kabul 13 un workers were kidnapped when the u. S. Army and the u. S. Embassy and the u. S. Military said we have to shut this down. There is something starting. And so they tried very hard to stop what happened to keep ithat relatively quiet talked to the interior minister who is in charge of all this and he said there is absolutely no ransom whatsoever. I talked to a british intelligent agent relative to my case and they said theres absolutely no ransom whatsoever. Then i talked to an old friend of mine who is a government and he said yes there was a 15 milliondollar euro ransom and the money disappeared. As i sit here today, i dont know the truth. You may be able to discern it based upon the evidence that i provide in the book. The head of the un whos now in columbia refused to talk to me. I tried many times to talk to him and he wouldnt answer me. The next kidnapping after that and for years later, and in afghanistan and a Foreign Correspondent who somewhat arrogantly, when i heard this story went with a with an afghan fixer which means a guide and driver to southern afghanistan to meet with the taliban and he was kidnapped. The demand was that the government release taliban prisoners and that the italians remove themselves, members of nato in afghanistan, remove all forces. Italy refused to release the me men, the taliban and beheaded the driver and beheaded the fixer. Italy panicked, italy paid a huge ransom and i was the first time a government paid a ransom for western kidnapping victim. There was never a chance for the probes to have that opportunity. A few months after that 23 very naive south korean missionaries went to afghanistan. Its illegal to evangelize if youre christian, theres only one church in the italian embassy, a Catholic Church where anybody, whether your soldier or formwork or whomever, its the only place you can go to church in afghanistan. They were kidnapped. Two men were killed, the south korean intelligence agencies gave 22 main dollars. The United States track them down and kill them all and i was next. The demand for me was one and a half Million Dollars and three men from guantanamo. The next person after me was the New York Times and his demand was 25 million. It quickly came down, but in his case, or in my case, they called me the golden goose and a week after david was kidnapped i was out and i went to the New York Times and they started this group to figure out what theyre going to do and they called david the red rooster. What does that mean . It means theyre not going to kill him. Kidnapping victim is a commodity. In my case, they wanted to exchange my fixer and have his father come in as the collateral. If you want to take a loan out its a bank here its a human being. In the kidnapping world, this collateral is a human. Next after that and you and this real quickly, and where becomes extremely powerful is the execution of jim foley which we all know about and which is the second most remembered, watched and remembered event on television since 911. The most remembered event for the American People is the twin towers coming down in the second is the execution of jim foley. That is arguably the reason why the United States went to war. It horrified the nation and galvanized obama and that led to our war on isis. Two weeks later it was steven and ned, Peter Catholic and then kayla muller but she was not executed, she was killed by a bomb which upset the Obama Administration that they called all of us are former hostages and families, those who were killed to the white house and in 2015 we met with the president and the Vice President as they tried to create a new form of policy where the United States would be able to talk, or excuse me, people like my parents were not alive but my father was but my mother wasnt, my brother and my sister or david rhodes could actually negotiate on their own with the kidnapping victim. , excuse me, with the kidnappers. Its the first time, and that became the policy for the final point that i want to touch on that i forgot to mention is that, this was before 911 in the in 2000, two christian missionaries from kansas were kidnapped in the southern philippines and went through a for effort year in the jungle, the george w. Bush administration authorized a ransom. They said so publicly, it was 320,000, the money disappeared and it was said publicly that they, the white house said if it leads to the capture of the kidnappers then this is the way we will win some therefore its possible, we will provide a ransom. Some people feel was done for bushes christian constituency. You can argue whether thats the case or not, but the United States did provide ransom. Now it has gotten to the point, maybe im skipping ahead, but in 2015 we learned that it came to the point with the case of bo bergdahl being kidnapped that the network that had held him was able to extract a ransom payment for proof of life and the pentagon did it. The fellow who was in charge of that stated so publicly and he was going to be courtmartialed but he was out of the army shortly thereafter. What we have most recently and will talk about this later is, this week we had a release of a family, a canadianamerican family that made headlines throughout the United States and ive been involved in not for long time behind the scenes with the families and ill talk about that, but it just shows the power of kidnapping in the most important thing about that was that the entire time from post 911 when the bush administratio administration, we would never negotiate with terrorists so to speak. We would never deal with the taliban but the bergdahl case, the Economy Network was able to raise itself to a point where they negotiated directly with the United States for his release. Kidnapping has allowed elements of the taliban to achieve almost nation stature to be accepted as a nationstate, but they were able to force it with United States and had to negotiate to get bo bergdahl out. Thank you for that, and for talking about your own experience, but also trying to give some context and remind us of all of the individuals in the families who have been affected by this strategy over these many years. You spent quite a bit of time and do quite a good job of portraying the complexity and the nuance of these radical islamic movements that are active in afghanistan and pakistan. They tend to run together in the mind of the casual observer and listening to you speak right now, you speak, you spoke a lot about the taliban and al qaeda and the Economy Network and isis so could you talk a little bit about important differences that you see between those groups . Is there any meaningful way to say that one of these groups more bea may be more radical than others are more dangerous than others in your view . Radical is a very interesting word. Im certainly not taking a political stance when i say this because i will elaborate in a minute. One mans Freedom Fighter is another mans terrorist. Real quickly, my background in afghanistan very quickly, i think i can explain it this way. When i was very young, i had been in the army with the fellow that was here tonight and after words i went to graduate school in paris on the g. I. Bill. I realized you could buy an old car and it was something that kids were doing in europe and sell it in asia. You could drive it too asia and sell it. It was a venture and a way to make money so i called my parents and to this day my brother and i do not know why our mother said yes but we bought an old volkswagen in germany and drove across asia. That was when iran was our ally. It was a great adventure and today that road is called, somewhat romantically, the hippie trail. If you saw movie called midnight express about billy hayes Drug Trafficking and he got caught and is, when we finally arrived in afghanistan we iran on the money and got in a car accident and they took what money i had left them there are five or 6000 hippies in the town of about 250,000. It was a small city. Girls wore long socks and dressed in short skirts for there were nine movie theaters , outdoor cafes, women dressed as they did in europe and the brotherinlaw and the first cousin of the king who was a former Prime Minister overthrew the king and established the republic. Initially he had gone to the Kennedy Administration and asked for money, we said no so he went to the soviet union. He began to move to the soviet union and he was seen by young activists as the red prints. During that time, whether was berlin to berkeley here had a lot to do with the vietnam war but it was marxism, communism, socialism versus their against islam and young men under the tutelage of professors at Kabul University where gone to university in egypt, under the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and they brought those books back, translated them given to the students. Twelve of them fled across the country to pakistan. They gave them codename, baker , mason and so forth give them passports, put them in the Pakistani Army to train them. He told me, this was important. In 1973 and then he went to the embassy and asked for money. Ive been unable to find out if we said yes and gave the money, but in any way, 1975, these young men hundreds came over and they brought over the professor who gave them the books and they called themselves. [inaudible] it means holy warrior. They launched attacks against Government Installations in afghanistan. Most of them were killed or captured in july 1979, robert gates has written about this in his book and from the shadows, his memoir being head of the ncaa and they said in an interview in 1998 with the french newspaper magazine, the cia, meaning the United States , jimmy carters administration began to fund secretly, july 1979, the group in order too, and these are not my words, lure the soviet union into afghanistan to pay it back for backing the vietcong and the north vietnamese when we were in vietnam. The chinese became our ally during this time so the idea wa was, the head of the isi which is the military intelligence arm of the Pakistani Army said in his book, he was in charge of the money that came in and distributed among the group, the principal reason in his view, borne out by brzezinski, together we created and began to nurture the group. At the same time, in the 911 Commission Deals very bleakly with some of the spread they talk about numbers. With our allies from algeria and egypt and saudi arabia, from yemen throughout the muslim world there are office in every one of these countries where young man, a disgruntled young man, a man on his own looking for something to do in life, something greater than himself , a cause, something for which to live and give him purpose in life could go into an office, he would get a passport, he would get a visa to get a plane ticket and an allowance to go to pakistan. According to this 911 commissio commission, i think there were many more than the 20000. These men are all arabs but they were indonesian, filipino, and they were taken into a certain place, a house where they could get some food i maybe stay and then sent to refugee camps and then into the country. They became, one of the men was Osama Bin Laden and this became, the house was called base, al qaeda means the base. What we today call al qaeda so they both came out of that cauldron of afghanistan. Another man who was there was the man who beheaded nick berg, his name was. [inaudible] and he came, he made his way back carrying his jihad with them which he wanted to bring to jordan where he killed an american the format and the u. S. Invasion in iraq he went into iraq to create al qaeda there, one of the men who worked for him in this group was a name that he chose, that daddy who is the founder of asus. Its what started in 1973 is now the point where they are all almost the same. The children of al qaeda . The children or the stepchildren, the taliban, when i was in captivity i had to listen to hours and hours to taliban and suicide tapes and in those recruitment tapes they would talk about, it was a chance, almost like a vienna boys choir, a chance about afghan poetry arguably the Largest Ethnic Group in the World Without their own homeland between the kurds, the largest number in pakistan, the second number in afghanistan, practically 1 15 million give or take. The taliban are more of a nationalist movement, very much a nationalist movement but theres not a boy, without becoming too complicated, theres not a boy over ten years old who doesnt think or doesnt believe like every mail, every one that the british, when they went to afghanistan and the first british crossed from india, crossing what we call the indus river, about the same time that lewis and clark reach the Pacific Ocean today which is part of pakistan when they called this forward policy which is to prevent the russians from coming down and taking in the crown jewel of the british empire, this border they created which divides afghanistan from pakistan. This is where the war is being fought, this is the center of this, the birthplace, the fountainhead of all these movements. One other movement that you didnt mention yet, the high county network. How does that relate to isis, al qaeda, the taliban . Or not. It does. When i was this young, naive explorer or more explorer than journalist of any sophistication at all went to afghanistan, i went along the border and by then they had been divided up by pakistan into seven Major Political parties and the u. S. And saudi arabia were each, this came out in the movie Charlie Wilsons war where i was the Technical Advisor on the war and i got a numerous arguments with cia analysts and ill come to that in a second, but they deal with it in Charlie Wilsons war. That is the, my mind just went blank. What was i talking about . I was asking about the high county network. Yes we got into an argument over the county network. In 1981 when i went to afghanistan, i went to these Major Political parties and i went to one in particular, i liked them better than the others in a man who today is my best friend in afghanistan and is a major part of my book and one reason why i was kidnapped sent me too live with a group of. [inaudible] in the mountains. They were not part of the original group that fled across the country informed the group. They were separate. In 2015, in april, and i may be getting ahead of myself but have to do is answer your question, when i went back to find out who really kidnapped me and why, it took a long time but i went through to tribal leaders and they arranged for me in ways i still cant quite put together how they did it, but with the economy. I became the only western journalist to have met with them since before 911. I had three meetings with them, the most recent was in june and had many conversations with them. They are separate. They are not part of that team. They established, their father raised goats, they come from the mountains, but this family is remarkable in its ability to go from the mountains of eastern afghanistan to the point where they are able to negotiate almost directly with the government with boberg doll and with coleman, and they have to, there are two more that theyre holding, an american and an australian. The high county network is arguably, certainly the oldest the most lethal, most effective, Deadliest Terrorist Organization in the world and that includes isis when you count the number of people they have killed. They are separate, they are their own arm of, according to admiral mike mullins, 2011 testimony before the Senate Armed Services committee the county network is an integral arm of the Pakistani Army. Terrorist groups do not operate generally in a vacuum. They go from yemen to egypt to saudi arabia. Turkey, and so the economies, and its a really good point they are unique in that they are neither isis, al qaeda or the taliban. Publicly they state that they are the taliban, but they will be unique position with Pakistani Army and, when i was with this cia director when we were Technical Advisors on Charlie Wilsons war, we were having lunch in a hotel in hollywood and i asked him about the group and he lowered his head and he said i wish they had come over to our side. There was a bond that developed between them and the cia and i cannot claim innocence here because theres a bond between us in a certain way in that they would allow us to come back and spend hours and hours talking to them. They are separate. Thank you for that. Every answer that you give provides so much complexity and i can think of about ten different questions to ask. One is about u. S. Engagement and policy in afghanistan. I would like to ask you, back in 2010, you and many other journalists wrote an open letter to president obama advocating that he moved to seek a peaceful move with the taliban. How do you feel about prospects for peace in afghanistan and the continued u. S. Involvement in afghanistan today. The war against the soviet union, the war between, the United States involvement in afghanistan which began very seriously in 1979, they were seen as a proxy army of the United States in the cold war. We did not want to put our own troops in afghanistan so we hired this mercenary army of arabs and we funded with saudi arabia this thereby taking a very tolerant muslim nation and turning large elements of it into a saudi arabia afghanistan and thereby changing the entire complexity of afghanistan and parts of pakistan where thousands upon thousands in their own desire to promote islam around the world and that created this cauldron of war that the soviet union saw that they could not win then pulled out and in the geneva accords that ended that war, obviously in geneva, it was between pakistan and afghanistan and the United States and soviet union were on the side. The only reason that were ended was because it was negotiated, but it really didnt and because even though we did not provide as much as before, we still kept active. Clearly since 1979. They tried to destroy al qaeda and more than anything else we wanted to get bin laden. There is no way they could go against ancient tribal code and give up a guest in his home. [inaudible] he went against his own fellow tribesmen and villagers to protect him because that is required under tribal law. That inability which is ancient afghanistan, coupled with the deadliness. They are backed by pakistan today and still wage war. President obama had close to 90000 troops in afghanistan and then he pulled them all out. The war continued, now a new president said he is going to take the gloves off and allow the cia greater latitude with drones and allow the commanders on the ground to do what needs to be done to clean us up. The more villagers you kill you will send every boy, cousin, relative to the taliban and out of revenge. What are they going to do what 90000 troops could do . The only way this will be resolved is in islamabad. I say that and by that i mean other nations. There was one negotiation so far. In 2014 at the table you had representatives of afghanistan, you had representatives of the taliban, and its not clear because of her different stories that the u. S. Has said they did not have anybody in the room. The chinese were in the room. Whats interesting is on one side of the table representing afghanistan was the very man whose family i was said to be too close to which led to me, what happened to me representing afghanistan. On the other side of table on behalf of the taliban, even though they were not a member of the taliban. These men were once allies. There were once in the same local party. Today with the chief negotiator for the separate countries. In 2017, or in april this year abraham told me that i talked with mohammed a couple times about this and that i said wait a minute, youre supposed to be, to myself, i did bring this up with him directly vended later that you were negotiating across the table as enemies but you just told me that you were talking with him together about whatever you were talking about twice. There are two things. Yes, you have to negotiate this under the table. There is part of afghanistan that no foreigner can penetrate. No one can know. Its a combination of serious negotiations among nations as well is to realize that the afghans are going to have to realize that they have to resolve this and can resolve this themselves if enough pressure is put on them and that would have to come from pakistan as well as the u. S. Such a crucial question to what extent Pakistan Intelligence influences the action of route class in afghanistan. Youve given a lot of thought to this relationship. What conclusions have you reached . Youve all noticed that, this is very delicate, i will answer in dealing with the kidnapping that in the last week there has been a case of the stories of the cia mily, jason boyle, caitlin coleman, american, what we thought were two children, three children, maybe for, one didnt survive, and the cia, after five years provided intelligence to the Pakistani Army which swooped in in a rescue attempt and killed all the captors and freed the hostages and their home, everybody breathes a sign of relief, we are all happy, enormously happy that they are out and live them back and in 2017, i had two meetings at the National Security council in the white house, before i went to see them and again to see them and i was advised not to go because they were afraid something would happen to me and, as they must say, but the head of all the people i met was the only one who didnt say that. All she said was be safe, in other words there is no indication that i could not go. The network is a terrorist organization so designated by the department of treasury therefore it is illegal for United States representative, a diplomat to negotiate or to talk or meet with a terrorist organization. We are not supposed to do it. You cannot do it under u. S. Law. Now, when i step back, in 2015 after a meeting in the white house, a man involved in my kidnapping, a British Intelligence agent called me and said he is coming to the u. S. And could he meet me in penn station in new york. He wanted to meet my friend david also. He was in new england where hes from with his family so i went. We were meeting and i looked over and i saw two pakistanis coming this cafe. I said wait, those are the two men who provided the first piece i was ever given by pakistan to go back to and when i saw them, what are they doing their part he said their friends of mine. I said okay. So we all talked and then he said i understand you have met with them and i said yes and i said they told me they only trusted me and i dont know quite what to do about that. He acknowledged that and i thought i dont think im ever going to be, for some reason i dont think ill ever be allowed back into pakistan after this meeting. And so, november came and keeping the government informed of my involvement because, what i have been trying to do since this book, the book that i have written was not one i intended to write. I wanted to go back and resolve things. I do want to talk to a bit about that subparagraph, but i dont want to lose track of the main story. When i went back and was made clear that i could see the economy, i had another contract to trace all the various network that emanate from pakistan and yemen because i am in this unique position because of my age and background and im not married and i dont have children and i still go out and do this with the men who were our allies who today are our enemies. And thats what i was doing. I went back to pakistan, after steven was murdered, i secretly went back to afghanistan frightened that as soon as i entered the country and went to the airport that my name was on the list because the jailer said were not going to let the bird out of the cage the second time. And the taliban. [inaudible] they are cleanshaven and theyre everywhere. Very sophisticated operation. I went to see my friend who i thought because of my relationship to him and i sat in a hotel and told him the whole story and he said no its this, its 180 degrees different in my advice is to leave very soon because what you are involved in a something much greater than yourself and its dangerous and you must leave. The next day i went to see the former head of the nbs which is the combination cia, fbi, retired and i told him my story a bit and he looked at me and he said, this is an afghan talking to an american and he said have you seen the movie 12 years a slave. I said i dont know what that is paraben in the middle east for the past year studying on a project. He said will you are that man. Everybody who you think was your friend is your enemy. And we are talking not just about afghans. So that is what sent me on this very long, dark, murky journey, this labyrinth from which i will never reemerge fully, out of which came this book. Then, as i was finishing that, because i met with them, because as opportunity opened up to me and they began to ask me or talk to me, if you will about how angry they were under certain elements of the bobo Doll Exchange and i didnt quite understand what they were talking about and i took the information back to washington, i am simply upon here being used and i realized this was something much greater and i had a role to play perhaps to help others and im thinking this opportunity came and explained its everybody and this was after which i met with this man, this former British Intelligence agent and i thought for some reason pakistan got wind of this and they were going to allow me too come back, i told everybody in this group of counterterrorist on the National Security council. Member from the state Department Said no, jerry, we think they would welcome a visa application from you in pakistan. Later separately i met with a member of the fusion cell which is sort of a bureaucratic swat team that president obama and his administration set up to deal with kidnappings after deaths of the ice as people, he read about this in june 2015 when we all met with the president on this and he created this fusion cell which is to bring the cia and the fbi and the department of defense and everybody together, a representative to try to use all of the various tribal entities in washington together to work for the betterment and to find ways to release americans being held hostage, political representatives being held hostage around the world. And so i told the same story to the fbi agent and he said no, we think the pakistanis would welcome an application, a visa application from you. There is no way in the world i could be allowed to go back to pakistan to meet with them and meet with them as i do without, and the last time i was told i would be vetted by the pakistani and bass are to the un, which i was, that i could do this without the complete and total approval of the isi. Theres no way i could come close to them without them. So joshua boyle and his family, they were taken by the network so, whats your take on their story, and was as a political or commercial kidnapping . A question. Im a tell you what i know. I know little bit more. I dont know a lot on this, about three what i know and ill let you decide what you think on this. What we know, publicly is that joshua boyle, canadian, married, his controversial, a very awkward background in that he was married to the sister of a man named omar who was in guantanamo for having killed in american, to americans and his sister is very outspoken, theres nothing wrong with that, on behalf of her brother, but i read somewhere there was a tie to bin laden who somehow was involved here. I asked myself, what in the world, when i heard about this, is a man taking a pregnant woman into afghanistan. There are no journalists who would dare go out into the country by themselves without guides and go to a village week you are completely protected where the taliban are everywhere, is to me in comprehensible. Did he described himself as a pilgrim. Yes, but theres another man, there have been others who tried that and theyre not around. Even if your program, youre also a commodity and youre also a commodity meeting something to sell. I found a very strange, maybe its all that he was a pilgrim and his wife is this way and they went together but i thought it was awkward. I thought it was strange. I still do. But, they wanted to do that and so they were held captive. Weve seen the videos for five years and no one seemed to know where they were. And then, President Trump, more than any other president in his speech announcing his afghan policy really criticized publicly pakistan and did not mince words about its ties to terrorist groups in backing terrorist groups. We been very diplomatic and what our statements have been about that over the years. Fullcourt press on this, that its interesting that in september, within a month that pakistan now which has received 12. 5 billion since 911 and has been allied with the United States and the cold war since 1954 would want to lose this relationship and this tied to the United States. And so, within, its not unreasonable to think that perhaps, and its interesting that the cia, within a few weeks of this, unable to do it for five years would find them and provide this information to the isi with which was very closely allied during the 1980s and 1990s once they bothered me about. [inaudible] that the director had asked me, because i complained, i was simply the low guy on the side but i said were in morocco shooting these movies. These mounds are not like afghanistan. Afghanistan has magnificat mountains. I finally convinced her to do something. She said okay, find a helicopter and accrue and take people up into the air and shoot footage and maybe we can do something. So i went back and i found people to do this. I got a phone call from the cia advisor on the movie. He said dont do anymore. Ive convinced the director that i can do it and ill take my friends from the Pakistani Army and will go do it. Hes been out of the army for 20 some years and hes gonna call his friends and taken army up above and hes so close with them that he can go shoot this footage, my goodness. This tie that i thought mightve ended with him 20 years later is certainly very strong. So that is my way of saying, perhaps there are links that are still there. Now, to bring this back, what they had said to me was, they could certainly be using me, one 100 . They wanted the Coleman Family to be able to see, to allow the parents to see their grandchildren. They would allow me too bring them over to see you then. But i would have to bring a letter from the u. S. Government which means something official. Within the past three weeks thats what we were trying to do so its difficult for me too believe entirely that they would allow any of their men to kill a girl because you cannot, think about this, children being born in a baked mud head in a compound, in a tribal area could not do this alone. They have to do this with women. They are to nurture those children and provide whatever needs to be provided and a bond develops between them. I find it difficult to believe that one child was murdered. This is a terrible thing to even contemplate, but i am confused as to exactly what really happened based upon the information that i know and what ive been involved in on my own. Its so complex. Its so murky to think that they would try too, because they were concerned about the welfare of their children bring the pentagram penciled to see them and that they would be. [inaudible] and that the cia could do all of this. It is very, very murky and thats my only way to answer your question. The Pakistani Army and the group has been together since the 1970s and they certainly will continue to be, and the role of the United States to remains extremely murky also. So what can i say, journalism is a Risky Business and your stories and the risks that youve taken personally is inspiring to all of us. I am afraid we are out of time at this point. I apologize for not getting to everyones question. I want to thank jerry van dyck on behalf of World Affairs for joining us this evening and thank all of you for your terrific questions and i also want to invite you to get his book or both books, i think we have both books the captive and the trade, and please do, and asked the questions that you have that i didnt get a chance to ask. Thank you very much. [applause] [inaudible conversations] are open to the public. They will air in the near future but tv, on cspan2. Good evening. Welcome to the books and books in