Weekends. Brought some warm temperatures with you . I certainly d trade off of a forecast for in you my christmas bundle of joy. Thats what well take. Thats what i am calling t a belong that nice warm air does build in for us, also dodging raindrops here today and specially tomorrow. So depending on when your travel plans happen, if you have got them, or if you are still one of those last minute shoppers out and becomes trying to get the gifts, errands taken care of, yes, dealing with wet weather along the way, so details on what storm system means for your travel, how it will time out, what Christmas Day is looking like and beyond, all of the details you need coming up in just the next few minutes. New this morning, man is undergoing surgery after he is shot in the back in philadelphias grays ferry neighborhood. Investigators tell us the 33 year old victim was walking home from the store, at 25th and moore, when he heard gunfire last night. He ran home, realized he was shocked, and ca
General ham let me start with you. Sort of going in proposition with africom in many ways is youre not going to have large amounts of american troops under your command on the ground, if any. Did you feel at times that you were a general in charge of the contractor army . No, not at all. There is a proper role i think for the contractors but theres also a proper role for the uniformed military. Like the other Combatant Commanders and the Service Chiefs i was part of a discussion with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and secretary of defense that yielded the defense strategic guidance of 20 to which was approved by the president , and conduct with regard to advocate says they will seek a light footprint innovative and it reads lowcost, approach to africa. Not only because i was part of that discussion but i think that is the right approach. I dont think there is a need for a large standing u. S. Uniformed military presence in africa. But there is a role and there are places whe
Author sean mcfate is next on booktv. The associate professor of the National Defense university and former military mercenary talks about the use of mercenaries in wars around the world today. He says we are headed towards a future that will resemble the middle ages hiring mercenaries to fight in wars is the norm. [applause] thank you. Thank you to Atlantic Council for hosting us and thank you for making at out on a less than auspicious weather day. This book is about the return of private military force International Relations today. I wrote this not simply as an International Relations scholar but also as a practitioner that i work for a Company Called dyncorp national for several years in africa and while i was working there i saw many press reports, many think tank reports, a lot of leftwing and rightwing kneejerk reaction to simply did not get what i thought the industry was right. The genesis of writing this book was not in any way a whistleblower book. It was really to paxton s
At the scowcrofts school of diplomacy i think it is called. So there is certainly that. What effect they have had so far is hard to know and i dont explore that but he feels very fortunate to have lived a life a life that he hasnt feels that he has to pass these down and has one daughter, one granddaughter. He is intent on trying to nurture especially at the Aspen Strategy Group the Atlantic Council and getting people and meant touring them. Most of these people are probably still fairly young 40s tops 40s tops with maybe the exception of the hadleys and gates but there is some of that absolutely. Our last question here in the back against the wall. You talked a little bit about how were the conditions that he thought extremism and terrorism sort of come about or i forget the word. Can you talk a little bit about his thoughts on extremism or how it comes about . I did not really talk to him about that. I did not talk about the roots of that. I came one of my concluding comments because
Tank reports, a lot of leftwing and rightwing knee jerk reaction that simply did not get what i thought was right. So the genesis of this book was not in any way a whistleblower book or etc. , it was really to pack some salience around a very policemen call issue. And that is the origins of polemical issue. Now, before i begin the actual argument in the book, i want to lay out a few disruptive facts from a decade of war. First is using, for example, 2010 numbers, the pentagon spent 366 billion were obligated to contractors. 54 of its budget. Seven times the u. K. s defense budget. Now, when most people think about armed versus up armed contractors, they think about 30 or so are armed. Thats not true. Only about 1015 during the war, the wars plural, were armed. Or were trainers. And this is the element of the contracting world that i am focused on. The vast majority of contractors, you know, cooked chow repaired trucks, werelingists were linguists etc. But i focused on this for me, the