Answers. It is a carl icahn began difficult. We do not historically have a great track record, the United States nor any other nation in the world. That said, al qaeda core, the group that struck us the into of 11 has been decimated. There has been some success along the way. Host here is a tweet from one of our viewers. And aumf is not a substitute for the declaration of war that the constitution contemplates and mandates. Are we at war . Guest we are at war. The president use that in his inaugural address. There is a big difference legally between being a Armed Conflict versus section eight where we declare being at war. Weve than a five times. International law has changed. This would be a long boring legal the session. The preferred venue today in these types of conflicts is an authorization for use of military force, not an article one, section eight congress declaring war. Host do you agree, jennifer . Guest absolutely. War has been declared five times. For better or for worse, this is the preferred method going forward. Host castling from chicago. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Host you on the air. Go ahead. Caller two points. First of all, what would make these people is here on stage think that president obama can win the war against the third world since this is been going on for thousands of years. It is funny how we can say here in so here and go in. But right here in this country you cannot even get a background check when that guy way in there and killed 25 babies in that school. That is what we should be focusing on. We are killing just like isis. You be heading just like them. No one comes over here. Take care of home for us. Mind your business. Then we would not have isis. Guest i think the caller raises an important point. The discussion of what is going on with isis is not substitute for conversation about what is going on domestically. There is a whole host of domestic issues that the Administration Needs to focus on. Including gun violence, and a whole host of things that require our attention. Host can any president win this war against the terrorist groups . Guest i think what we have seen when our nation has been attacked or is under us threat, for the most part, the American People galvanized behind the president. Whoever he is. Polls today suggest, as your previous guest said, people definitely support this country taking some type of military action against enemy. Doing on option. At the same time, to kathleens point, do we have kind we do have crime in this country unemployment, a lot of challenges. When youre the president , you do not get to choose just one thing and do one thing at a time. I have never been the president , i never will be. I assume he has 100 things he has to deal with any given day. And the various departments at across the government are operating at the best of their ability. He does not have the ability to just focus on one thing, he has to work on everything. Host fred from new york, democratic caller. Caller republican. Host ok, were listening. Caller if we ever have a major disturbance or attack on this country, we have not had one since 9 11. I think president bush to the right thing going in there and sending a message to the islamic terrorists, or what everyone called them, that we would not put up with it. We have not been attacked since. The only thing, you will drive them underground. We have to understand that if were going to get in there, we have to make them so afraid to make a move. What they are doing now is and we will not let them do it. Guest two points. There has not been an attack on the whole lives since 9 11, that is true. That is something we should applaud and be thankful for. It is hard to know what wouldve happened if strategies have been different. The question is as to what to do now, it still remains tricky. One of the reasons why a college pointed out earlier that the administration has been slow to lay out a strategy is because theyre still struggling with this. It is not obvious what to do. There are press. It is not the isil is in one small territory, you can send in Ground Troops go that territory. It is spread out. They are underground. They are populating various parts of the world. It is very tricky. Some of the actions of the u. S. Takes can actually backfire and augment recruitment. These are hard, difficult choices. I do not envy those in the administration who have to decide the appropriate way forward. Host charles, i will come back to you after we hear from roger in iowa. Caller good morning to you. I am a little concerned about all of this political talk. In world war ii, we had the nazis. If you read the newspapers from the 1930s im 74 years old what is going on now is what went on in the 1930s. If you look at world war ii, we declared war on japan. We never declared war on germany. Germany declared war on us. Yet, we fought germany. Isis is an Islamic Terrorist Group that has declared war on us. The fbi just said they have cells in 49 of the 50 states. Its simple. They want to kill us. We better kill them before they kill us. Host charles stimson, is it that simple . Guest i think to my fathers generation, my dad fought in world war ii, when you boil all of this down to the narrow thing that when there is a threat to your country and their try to kill you, you have to kill them. That is kind of like the American Youth those to a lot of people. That is what you do. It is more copper cavein that im afraid. Thats the fact that there is economic instability in the area. Oil prices have gone down. That has d destabilize some of the partners. Jordan has obviously doing the fight because of the horrific burning of the pilot. They have a great air force. It is an interconnected world. When you are at war with a nonstate actor people global action, and who are intent on n establishing Islamic State there are a lot of factors. Yes, we have to go in there and use military action. We have to operate on a lot of Different Levels if we will be the ideology over the long term. Host brandy and mississippi. Democratic caller. Caller i just want to remind everybody to do what you know until you know better, and then do better. That is directed to our congress. And to our partners. In the battle of the minds that we are facing now. I do not have all the answers, but your previous caller talks about the third world. I live in the second world. Issues are always addressed herein either. Host all right. Let he bring in the street from one of our viewers. This is a War Without End nnp ago can we also is a war terrorism in perpetuity question mark guest guest credit, i think it is appropriate because after three years they plan to revisit and consider where we are at that point. Have we made progress . Has the enemy morphed . So we should not be declaring war in perpetuity. Obama has been very consistent in saying that this nation should not be in a state of perpetual war. That is damaging to our nation and identity. And a whole host of other areas outside of the war fighting context. So no, we should not be in a state of perpetual war. How we get out of that state is not easy, but certainly we are going back to our initial discussion about authorization. That is why it obama is right to propose a sunset in this particular situation regarding isil. Host lets go about to that lets go back to 2002. Why cant we fund the kurds . Whats going on there, Cully Stimson . Guest they are very effective the fighters, but they will not be able to do it alone. Nor will saudi troops, and nor will moderate fighters that we can find in the area. I take a little bit of issue with my friend jen. I think our goal should be a win , the ideological battle. But you take your enemy as you find them. I am a military guy, been in the navy 23 years. I did not obviously fight in world war ii, but i know enough military people who know that what they want is a strategy for victory. The American People want a strategy for victory. Does that mean we should be in a perpetual state of war . No. One of the to good discussions we will have is whether this sunset . Which is not an ending, but lets get a report card of where we are, take an assessment of where the real threats are, and have they been degraded to the point where we need this wartime authorization, or can we rely on counterterrorism and other tools to beat back the danish king the diminishing threat. That is healthy in a democracy. Host do we have a report card on the health of isis . Saudi arabia you said there was a very effective air force going after them. Now egypt. The usled coalition, where are they . Because it does not seem that they are degraded and destroyed, as the president said. Guest one of the things that the three of us do not have access to our the classified briefings that i used to participate in as a player where the Administration Officials who have high security clearances cia people and others can go in and brief behind closed doors members of congress and give them the real no kidding, this is what is happening, brief. There has to be a level of trust in our country where politics stops and National Security rains and National Security reigns. We have to believe that when the head of the fbi, the National Security center, the head of the longstanding National Security apparatus steps forward and says this is the threat, we should take it at face value. I take president obama at face value when he says that this isis growing cancer is a threat to our country and our allies. We should take that at face value. Host by the way, the head of the National Defense counsel if you want to know more about the threat of isis, go to our website, cspan. Org. Jennifer daskal, i want to give you the final word to wrap up. Guest i want to clarify something that cully said. We need to win. I think we are saying the same thing. We need to win. We need to agree that the whole range of other counterterrorism tools at our disposal, a twit of which there are many, are adequate and we do not have to go to the first resort. We are in agreement on that. Congress has a chance to engage, and i hope i remain more optimistic than cully does and i hope that we get an authorization that will reflect the best the nation has to offer. Host former counsel to assistant attorney general jennifer daskal, and Cully Stimson, former Deputy Assistant [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2015] plus your phone calls, Facebook Comments and tweets. Washington journals d live tomorrow and every morning at 7 00 eastern on cspan. February is black History Month and the cspan bus is on the road. Visiting the top historically black colleges and universities, to speak with their faculty and discuss Public Policy issues and to highlight their role in americas Education System. And tomorrow morning at 9 15 eastern, during washington journal, well meet with brian johnson, president of tuskegee university. And then on friday well visit exavier university in louisiana and talk with its pro voast. The white house today announced the administration will allow the sale of armed drones for the first time to allied nations. The Washington Post reporting that it marks, quote, a step toward providing allied nations with weapons that have become a cornerstone of u. S. Counterterrorism strategy, but whose remotely controlled power to kill is intensely controversial. The new policy they write, announced today after a long interim review is a significant step for u. S. Arms policy its also scrambling to secure a greater share of the global drone market. You can read more on washingtonpost. Com. Also at the white house today, Vice President biden kicked off a summit on combating terrorism in the u. S. And abroad. He gave these remarks at the start of a round table discussion with local and local elected and foreign officials, Community Leaders and religious figures. Thank you very much. First of all, welcome. Particularly to our friends from belgium and the netherlands. Who have come a long way to be here. We appreciate it a great deal. But thank you all for being here. Especially in this, quote, snow emergency. Now, those of you from minnesota know this is not much of an emergency. I understand that. But in washington, when youre here, snow is coming, everything shuts down. But we did have some snow last night and i appreciate you all making the effort. Particularly those of from you boston who probably view this as visiting the caribbean. [laughter] so thank you all so very much. Look were here today because we all understand that in dealing with violent extremism, that we need answers that go beyond a military answer. We need answers that go beyond force. Countries, all of us including the United States, need to work this from the ground up. We need to work from the ground up and engage our communities and engage those who might be susceptible to being radicalized. Because they are marginalized. Societies have to provide an affirmative alternative for immigrant communities, a sense of opportunity, a sense of belonging, and that discredits the terrorists appeal to fear isolation, hatred, resentment. And we also have to police have to build partnerships within religious and business and civic communities. But weve also brought along all those folks. We have religious leaders here, we have the business community, civic leaders, all with one purpose in mind. How do we counter the appeal of radicalization . In september president obama convened the u. N. Security council, as some of you might remember, and led in the passage of a resolution committing countries to take on the scourge of foreign fighters, foreign terrorist fighters but we need more needs to be done that what has already been done. Leader after leader explained that its not enough to take on these networks of extremists who wish use itered who wish to do us harm. We also have to take on the ideology that attracts fighters from all around the world to join them. In this meet something a continuation of that effort. Over the next three days well hear from leaders from government, from Civil Society from communities in nearly 70 countries around the world in this threeday conference, about how they believe we can make good on the collective commitment to build from the ground up here. And id like to thank again those from belgium and the netherlands who are dealing with the most recent man necessarytations of manifestations of this challenge. We asked you both to be here today because youve been active had and innovative. I conscious active and innovative. I just had a chance to meet with the European Council and parliament. The topic of discussion in our closed meetings was about what to be done in europe now. Theyre asking me we discuss what had some of the things we have done. Both of you have been leading. Were anxious to hear what you have to say. The focus of todays events are on making sure that violent extremism never finds a home in the communities of the United States here. Were going to hear from representatives from los angeles, minneapolis st. Paul, as well as boston. As well as u. S. Attorneys from each of those locales, who have been leading in this effort as well. Your cities were chosen because of what youve already done. What youve already done. Reverend brown and i go back a long way. I wrote the socalled crime bill in the United States, which everybody thinks put 100,000 cops on the street, but it voted devoted more money to prevention than any program weve ever engaged in the United States of america, so represent rand brown, youve been at this so reverend brown, youve been at this for a long time. Im not talking about radicalization, im talking about communities being left behind. And how to deal with violence. In minneapolisst. Paul, youve been working to build relations with the east african immigrants who have made your city their home. As the same folks have made my city a home on a smaller scale. A very large identifiable somali community. I might add, if you ever come to the train station with me, youll notice that i have great relationships with them because theres an awful lot of them driving cabs and are friends of mine. For real. Im not being solicitous. Im being serious, so starting in 2007, the minneapolisst. Paul, youve trained over 600 officers in the somali language and culture. Youre actually stepping out to try to engage. Youve invited hundreds of teens from the community to your police stations for sporting events and swimming and im sure you have palpolice athletic associations and the like in your city. And i know you have much more to talk about. Weve asked los angeles to be here because youve reached out to the communities. Youve reached out, youre Building Networks to try to connect the needs of your citizens with access to help everything from providing Mental Health resources to coming up with strategies for other interventions. Sitting with us today is the head of the Muslim Public Affairs council who came up with a program called safe spaces initiative. Teaching Community Leaders, religious leaders and counselors how to deal with violent extremism in the city of los angeles. And in boston, you are planning to provide forms and platforms for Community Leaders in every community. The Muslim Community, all minority communities, for people to be able to advocate for nonviolence and be able to express themselves online, as well as in person.