Which isnt easy. Our country is a lot bigger and its different and we know that. Thats why we need support for that because it is a daunting you know, experience. Ford foundations already, you know, pledged their support. We need other powerful entities within our own country to think this is an important issue. So certainly that is one of the areas we feel theres a huge gap. The other one is were really hoping American Media can find ways to collaborate. Certainly in the field, thats so important. Jim seemed to feel that freelancers did as a whole, thats all they had is one another so they tended to Work Together in the field. But we really would love to see if we couldnt do more as American Media for colleagues in captivity, if you will. I realize this complex is very competitive here in our country. Its not a simple thing. But thats something i think jim would have liked to have seen. You know, some of the hostages mentioned to us once, this really was a big hostage issue. I mean, crisis, if you will. There were 18 western hostages. All held together. And nobody knew about it. I mean, a lot of the journalists knew about it. A lot of people knew but the public didnt know. And in their hopeful moments some of the european freed hostages would say said to us that they would wouldnt this be cool if all of our countries were really working together to get us out . You know . This would be just awesome. You know, a chance for all of us to come together with our allies and it couldnt have been further from the truth. Every country was doing it their own way, all by themselves, you know . So anyway, but im sorry, im getting off track. So were hoping that we can do some of the things jim would have wanted to do had he had the opportunity to come home. Tonight on cspan 3 starting in primetime at 8 00 eastern, american artifacts. Women in congress. The historian of the house of representatives matthew was knewsky present artifacts and photographs related to the history of women in the u. S. House. Beginning with the history of janette rankin. And then history with the u. S. Capitol Historical Society, with paul ryan and Cokie Roberts whose father hale boggs served on the committee. And then artifacts looking at the Russell Senate office building. Donald richie describes several hearings there, including the investigation of world war ii x expenditures and the Army Mccarthy hearings. With the senate in the august break, well feature book tv programming weeknights in primetime on cspan2 starting at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Here are a few special programs. Saturday, august 22, were live from jackson, mississippi for the inaugural book festival. At 11 30 a. M. Eastern with discussions on harper lee. Civil rights and the civil war. On saturday, september 5, were live from our Nations Capital for the 15th annual book festival. Followed on sunday with our live in depth program. With former second lady and senior fellow at the American Enterprise institute lynne cheney. Book tv on cspan2. Television for serious readers. Award winning photojournalist robert nickels berg documents for the Time Magazine and he had firsthand exposure to the rise of militant groups in the region including al qaeda. He spoke at the Aspen Institute in march reviewing the modern history of afghanistan through the photographs. He talked about his career and his book afghanistan a distant war. Im going to give you a brief introduction on how i got to south asia and then begin a rather rapid 60 image presentation starting from 1988 and going up to 2013. In 1987, i moved from bangkok, thailand, where time had a bureau cover southeast asia. When an opportunity opened up in india to cover south asia. Having originally started my professional career with time in central america, very small countries i never thought id end up ten years later in the massive land mass of south asia. If you look at the map, particularly a National Geographic map its quite huge. When i landed it was the end of the cold war. I think one thing thats very important for this evening and for you to understand, a rather complicated subject of afghanistan, is the context of that period of time. It was the end of the cold war. The United States and russia were still tank to tank in europe. We had tank counts back then if you remember. Central asia started to break apart from the soviet union. And the russians were willing to withdraw, which is something very difficult for a nation to encounter and deal with. So moving there, india was asleep at the time as a story for journalists and i quickly was dumped into pakistan to follow the trail up to afghanistan. And prior to my coming the list of my colleagues had already worked with the mujahedeen and disappearing for a month. This was great, but for me working for a weekly i had to deliver film and it had to go from kabul to pakistan to europe to new york within 24 hours. Go to the lab and that fourletter word film is something quite foreign today. But it was very manually driven and the challenge was more logistic as well as editorial. So the beginning im going to book end this conversation tonight with the withdrawal of the soviet army, better for us tonight to call them the russians with the 2013 withdrawal of the americans. That way we can kind of compress everything in a similar topic. So here you have an afghan soldier handing a flag of friendship to the departing russians which another element here that i had to quickly deal with was the ambiguity and the gray area. And this is essential for anybody working in the region whether its africa, southeast asia, china, europe, whatever, you have to embrace ambiguity. Keep in mind that the russians at this point had killed a million afghans. They had also and they do it quite violently. Similar to what you see in the ukraine, carpet bombing, execution style. So context is very important here. So whats this flag of friendship all about . In 1989, the cia and pakistans intelligence agency, isi, interservices intelligence, decided that it was time after the soviets had withdrawn to establish a foothold inside afghanistan. Any insurgency needs to establish a foothold. This is the battle of jalalabad. This is the battle outside of the airstrip in jalalabad. In is the rag tag army, mainly pashtuns. You can see the rag tag quality of this and particularly this captured russian fur hat. He had obviously gotten that from a garrison they had already overrun. This is about a threehour drive from the pakistan border in the kaber pass. Keep in mind in the image, i kind of knew it, but the arabs, bin laden in particular was about two miles away over this ridge here. They were also at the airport which was the front line. The battle of jalalabad failed, 8,000 killed. And it was a slap in the face to pakistan as well as the cia. That wasnt going to stop them though. This is what carpet bombing looks like. These are refugees fleeing the same battle along the same road. A series of bomb explosions all along the line. They were obviously using this highway as a marker. But luckily, i had my feet in the Great Mountain stream, boots off and i was caught totally unaware. But thats what carpet bombing thats about as close to carpet bombing as you want to get. Visas became available for journalists in 1988 for the withdrawl and that was a new chapter in coverage. That meant we had official access to the city which had been cut off prior to this. You had to go in over the mountains but now the page was turned and we could go into the city and document in particular this was interesting. This is the military academy. You can see here the discipline, the espree decor and these are all members whose families are probably without doubt having been members of the afghan communist party. So as the mujahedeen got closer and closer to the capital, most of these people had to flee for their lives and ended up in pakistan, india or europe. Compare that to this. Institutionally the whole foundation of afghanistan began to implode and thats what we got in 2001. This is the old britain can tonement area in kabul. Very interesting area. So eventually in 1991, this is april in southeastern afghanistan in host province, they were able to establish a foothold inside the country. This is pakistan right here, you can see the importance of borders and geography. It will be a recurring theme. This is when theyre finally successful in taking over a province and that spelled basically doom for the government in kabul. Scud missiles were being used. They would fall inaccurately, but that was the weapon of choice from the government that the soviets had left behind. But you can see these are mostly agricultural guys living from the country side who had been pushed across the border in pakistan. This is the main conduit for the cia and isi throughout the ten years war. Remember Charlie Wilsons war, the book and the movie, this is with unof one of the main areas theyd come to visit. This is acehny, his men and he tribes. Very important. Pashtun. Very well educated. Hes basically the godfather of global jihad. In the early 1980s he went to mecca on a regular basis to raise money for his training camps. He was encouraged by the cia and the pakistanis and given a lot of money. Hundreds of millions of dollars went to his area. And he was also the one who befriended osama bin laden. I went there in 1990. To ask him with a reporter if he was training cashmereries. He was. And that was the lead and that was the beginning of the conflict in india in 1989. He had them there, we saw them but he was also very hospitable. He didnt care that i was an american. He didnt care what passport i had. He also didnt care what he told me. He was very much matter of fact, yes, im in favor of global jihad. Anyone who wants to take it up can come here and train with me. Hes also the one who befriended osama bin laden. And these camps still remain. Hes rumored to be in a nursing home in pakistan, but his sons continue to maintain the network. Thats a captured russian tank. This is the backside you can see how well its folded into the draws of that terrain. Very difficult to see from above and very difficult for a scud missile to land in. These are two al qaeda representatives, training four afghans in the same area. A dry river bed. Right across the boarder from what is the border from what is called pakistan and the northwest province. With good connections you could get in there and now the only way to get in there is with a drone. These camps are still active. One of the more interesting ethnic groups i came across were the uighurs. We didnt want access to the training camps, but there was a big compound and fortunately enough the reporter i was working with, tony davis, who spoke fluent mandarin, he grew up in singapore, he came across theyre obviously learning how to strip down an ak47 and put it back together again and tony said watch this when i go and talk to them. So he was barking at them in mandarin. They freaked out. They didnt want to engage us and they said as to why they were there, their parents had a Chinese Restaurant in lahore, pakistan, they were only there for the weekend. The legacy of this is that the uighurs are still there in this training camp. Theyre still creating trouble for the chinese in northwestern china and theyre under a lot of pressure back home. Back to the city in kabul where you did need a visa. This trip here, no visa was required. Just good contacts here. You have to apply through the soviet embassy in new delhi, wait a while, youd eventually get in. But the daily life is what i was interested in as a photojournalist and you have the traditional dance known as the atan and these are all almond trees. A lovely situation and it takes place every friday, their day of rest, with the players off on the right. As the things got closer and closer to 1992, this is also from 1992. Daily life went on, but rocketing was also going on. Here you have the one and only daily newspaper being hawked by this young kid. Again, the whole context here and content in the photograph is one man who can read, reading the newspaper to everyone who cant. This was in march of 1992. And knowing that the government was tottering, quickly get a visa, and i managed to stay for about a month. The Time Magazine insisting that we do stay. Actually i volunteered to stay and it was one of the best things about working in this region because they couldnt find you. New york had no way of contacting you other than with a telex machine. A fabulous situation. April 18, 1992. One week before the government collapsed. This was something i had never i actually thought about, but dreamed of, seeing how a an attack on the government is carried out. This is essentially what afghanistan looks like ethnically and if you learn to read faces, you can see all the major groups here except the pashtuns. Its a nation of tribe, clans and ethnic groups. Its not a formal country in my opinion. But here you have the recently defected minister of defense. He had just defected from the government and pretty much that signals you that the government is going to collapse. Hes uzbek from northwestern afghanistan. These are shiia sect. One, two, three. Again, faces, more Central Asian looking. And the very charismatic leader of which we have a gentleman here wearing one of their hats. Persian, tadjik group and not in the good graces of the cia or the pakistanis who favored the pashtuns. Here they announced the takeover of kabul which ministries theyre going to attack and which intersections theyll go for. But again the whole competition here versus the pashtuns. One week later, youve got these fearless uzbek fighters, blocking an intersection and who are they blocking but the pashtuns coming in under the leadership, and also favored by the saudis. Look closely, no shoes. They are fearless fellows. We also thought their blood might be green. They were just mad and they loved to fight. They fight for loot and narcotics. The victory celebration lasted about 24 hours and immediately were going to dip into the civil war. 1993, the onus of any civil war falls on the civilians and here you have a man who went out Early Morning to get probably milk and eggs or vegetables, caught in the cross fire, injured, his back side being carried back across by a policeman. A typical scene in kabul in 1993. This is the river that runs through the city. This is the ministry of defense that all the rocketing, devastating. Some of you may know the phrase katyusha rockets. Awful armament, but thats daily life for everybody. This was a typical stand aside the puddle as the tank goes through scene. Again, back to the civilians and how they suffered in downtown kabul. Different ethnic groups are fighting over western kabul. Shiia sunni. Government, nongovernment, deals are being made all the time, but mortars mortar tubes were aimed essentially straight up. Artillery battles and gun battles. This is one typical family leaving quickly. If you have five seconds, 30 seconds or two minutes what do you take . It became very evident to me this was a serious move to get out of town or just move aside quickly. A bicycle. A teacup. A chicken. And a bag of food. The daughterinlaw and the mother combined household. And no men are fighting age. Eventually they got to go back two or three days later but they were called in the cross fire on a hillside in downtown kabul. Heckmantar was not a generous fellow, he cut gasoline across the kieber pass. So when gas became unavailable you had to buy it on the black market, including us and taxis. This is what it looks like if you have to take a taxi in the morn going to work. 1993. There were about 25 people on this car. Its a russian vol ga. You can see how low to the ground it is. Its actually it could be called the clown car but its not really. This is the way you got to work because buses and taxis werent running. Again, the families suffer and here a family of six without a breadwinner. A woman here whose husband had been killed in 1992. Had a ration book for food worth about 15 a month. Squatting in an apartment in kabul. Downtown kabul in 1994. This is the Main Business district. The front line is right here. Nomansland and down in this basically the center of the picture is our al qaeda fighters, pakistanis and the members of the group. These are government water boys during a lull in the activity. During one of the lulls in the activity i went down with the british reporter to talk to these people at a round about. When all of a sudden, another group of five come up to them and challenge them and accuse this group of stealing their television. Essentially you live on very little money, but a lot of loot. Why anyone would want to fight over a television where theres no electricity is beyond me, but how do they solve this argument . By filling this guys stomach with bullets. So they came flying over here wanting to take our taxi. This is the fellow that was yelling for the driver. You can see its rare that they have bayonets. That meant it was a little bit serious. We had to listen to them. And this is how you learn to work with the best afghans, either translators, fixers, drivers. And in particular this driver was renowned for his fearlessness, but he was very clever. He had a cutoff switch underneath the dashboard. A switch. So when he said, no, the car is not working right he would turn it over and it would whine and make a lot of noise. And they said, okay, were out of here. They put the mortally wounded one in a wheelbarrow and wheeled him off. But these are the drivers and relationships that as journalists you need to make. They save you. I never thought he had a cutoff switch underneath. Walking around kabul in 199394, youd be amazed at what you came across. I cant find the other journalists i worked with, but i came across the shiia. Behind a clinic, remember the family that was fleeing the battle is over here. This area now is totally built up. But it was a cemetery and a clinic. In the foreground here. These men had been shot and dumped, probably from another area. This is primarily a shiia neighborhood. So the whole thing of sunni, shiia was more of an issue than it is today. It was a tit for tat thing. We moved from 1993 when complete chaos and civil war and roughly 85 of the country is involved in civil war to september of 1996 when the taliban had come up from kandahar city and eventually encircled kabul. All the militia groups that were fighting to keep them away drew a truce with them and these are two taliban firing 107 millimeter rocket at the fleeing government of the minister of defense and the president north of the city. Its an interesting scene, particularl