Good evening, and welcome to the CSIS-TCU Sheeper School Journalism Series. We're pleased that you all could be with us tonight. I'm Andrew Schwartz, Vice President of External Relations here at CSIS. After Bob and the panel kicks it around a bit, we'll be able to take some of your questions. And if you could come up to the mic and ask your questions, that'll be great. But with that, I'd like to turn it over to Bob Schieffer. And I'd also like to say thank you to TCU for being here and being part of this and this wonderful series that we're able to do with Bob. Thank you very much, Andrew. And thanks all of you for coming. So we have today basically a journalist roundtable on Afghanistan and Pakistan. And we hope to talk about that. And we have four people here who know a lot about this and who know about it from being there on the scene and getting ready to go back. Rajiv Chandrasekrian, Associate Editor of The Washington Post, and with us before, he wrote the great book on Iraq Life in the Imperials, in the Emerald City, Life Inside the Green Zone. I still want the best books, I think, about Iraq. And it's done a lot of groundbreaking reporting. You're getting ready to go to Afghanistan now next week. Yep. Next week. Nancy Youssef, who was the Baghdad Bureau Chief for the McClatchy Newspapers for about four years. She's been writing about Iraq for even longer than that. Got back from Afghanistan in January, and she's getting ready to go back in about a week or so. That's right. Ibn Lus was made Washington Bureau Chief of the Financial Chimes in June of 2006. Writes about the U.S. economy, politics, foreign policy. Manages a team of Washington-based reporters from 2001 to 2006. He was the South Asia Bureau Chief for the Financial Times based in New Delhi. He began his career as a Geneva-based correspondent for the Guardian of the United Kingdom. He has highly acclaimed book India in spite of the gods, The Strange Rise of Modern India came out in 2008. And of course, over on the right, my old buddy, David Sanger, who's the Chief Washington Correspondent for the New York Times. His new book is just out. It is a New York Times bestseller. And it is called The Inheritance, The World, Obama Confronts, and The Challenges to American Power. It's sort of, I call it, owner's manual for the new president coming into office and kind of a guide on the problems. I think he knows what they are about that. But I'm sure he enjoyed having your book to give him a little start on it. We want to talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan. And I think the interesting thing about this is where these were being dealt with as sort of two separate subjects in the previous administration. The Obama administration has basically put the two countries together. And I want to talk about, is that a good idea? What does that mean? And why don't we just start with you, David. Bring us up to date on where we are right now in these two countries. And do you see these two policies being put together as sort of one policy now? Well, they said quite explicitly, Bob, that that was going to be the intent of the new administration when they came in. Although I think in all fairness to President Bush and his team, they were beginning to do that in the last policy reviews that took place at the end of last year as they began to recognize that, of course, since the problem was a common one and since the insurgents don't particularly view the border that we all care about as a border for them, that these were two completely interrelated problems and completely interrelated insurgencies. Of course, there's a long history of having a lot of difficulty getting the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan to work together themselves. And there were a number of cases during the Bush administration, there had been some in the Obama administration, where efforts to try to coordinate military operations and even diplomatic operations, but military for sure, so that you could squeeze the insurgents on both sides of the border have by and large not worked because the Pakistanis weren't moving up to that border and because the Afghans were in many cases not capable and U.S. forces, of course, have been stretched thin. I think the interesting thing about the Obama policy since they turned it out about two, two-and-a-half months ago was this, that if you read what its core objective is, it is to defeat al-Qaeda and its associates. It says nothing about democratizing Afghanistan, most of the political objectives that President Bush had laid out had been set aside other than chasing after and defeating al-Qaeda and its associates. The difficulty that they've run into, of course, is that while we are pouring troops into Afghanistan, we'll have about 60,000, I guess, by the end of the summer, by the time this is done, maybe even a bit more if you include some of the support troops. Al-Qaeda, of course, is largely in Pakistan and we can't operate there. And so even if you deal with it as a single entity, as a matter of policy, as a matter of practice, except to the degree that they are pursuing the covert programs that President Bush extended last summer when he authorized both broader predator strikes in a bigger target group or some of the operations that President Obama has done since, by and large, we have our hands tied still in Pakistan. I want to ask Rajeev and Nancy both the same question. You're getting ready to go back to Afghanistan. What are you going to be working on? What are the stories you're going to be looking for as you go back? Just want me to tip my hand right here. I want to just follow up on one thing David was saying. While the administration's stated strategic objective is, as David noted, going after Al-Qaeda, that they have certainly de-emphasized the broader talk of democracy building, other sort of broader reconstruction efforts, much of the U.S. activity on the ground, both on the civilian and military side, is largely unchanged today from the way, from what was going on a year or two, three ago. In fact, in many ways, there's simply an increase. There are more troops flowing in, particularly into the south. There are more reconstruction dollars that will be flowing through the pipeline. And what I want to develop a better understanding of is where does this effort, as it plays all down the ground, link up with this broader sort of strategic change that has been articulated from the White House? And how do you get to a point where your focus is simply going after Al-Qaeda and denying them sanctuary? And what appears to be the case is that the administration and principally through the Special Envoy Ambassador Holbrook, as well as General Petraeus and their respective staffs believe that you need a continued degree of engagement in Afghanistan on the reconstruction front, both in terms of at the local level building up local governance and local institutions, the police force, the Afghan army, as well as other types of more traditional reconstruction efforts, particularly with regard to agriculture, for instance, as they seek to try to find new ways to combat some of the poppy cultivation, particularly in the south. But understanding how the new strategic objectives and the very vague white paper that was released by the administration now some weeks ago translates into changes on the ground as something that will be sort of up there on my list. And then also trying to see how this... how the addition of U.S. forces in the south plays out. The U.S. Marines and a Striker Brigade are just starting to flow in to southern Afghanistan. They won't really be operational for another four weeks or so. They're waiting for a lot of their equipment to follow them. But what does that mean? All of a sudden the south, which had been principally the domain of the British and the Canadians with a few Dutch and Australian and some Americans thrown in, now will be a principally American theater. And the Americans are going to push into parts of Helmand province and parts of Kandahar province. And how will that change the dynamics down there? There's going to be a political component to it too, Bob, as U.S. casualties rise. How will that affect support for Obama's broader AFPAC efforts back home? Well, I'm looking at this as a Pentagon correspondent. And so one of the things that I'm focused on and folks looked at when I was there in January is the military's transition from Iraq to Afghanistan. Because up until this point the mindset, the equipment, the training was all focused towards Iraq. And you're seeing a military that's trying to very rapidly adjust to Afghanistan and finding that the lessons learned in Iraq, which in some cases took years to get to, doesn't translate into Afghanistan as well and you're starting to see the readjustment. The armor that they wear in Iraq doesn't apply to Afghanistan. It's too heavy. The MRAPs that we talk about so much, the vehicles that were designed to protect troops against the IED threat in Iraq, again doesn't work against the rough terrain in Afghanistan. And so from my perspective, my job is constantly to cover that transition from one war zone to the next. And as Rajiv mentioned, the paper that the administration put out is quite broad and so when you're on the ground, you end up seeing the responsibility of sort of translating that into a practical policy falling on 22-year-old second lieutenants and the Marines and how they go about doing that. The other thing as a military correspondent that I'm looking at is what they do with the numbers. You know, in Iraq they had 140,000 troops upwards of 150,000 on the surge to send in to really flood Baghdad and put troops out in every little community to deal with the threat. Whereas in Afghanistan, as we've mentioned, it's about 60,000, 100,000 if you start to count the coalition troops. And so how do you use those troops effectively? Will we find them in outposts? Will they be able to reach the tribal leaders? Or will we see them instead being a quick reaction force if you're reaching out to the local tribal leaders and the local security chiefs and saying, look, if you work with the Taliban, we'll be here to back you if they come and attack you. So how they dole those troops out, how they move in the south. And thirdly, the relationship between the coalition and the U.S. forces. Again, we'll have a larger U.S. presence of what was something that could really be called a coalition effort will become a U.S. effort. And the problem becomes how Canadians do something that's different than how the British do it or the Dutch do it than how the Germans do it. And so how do you meld those efforts together, particularly in a region as complex as the south? Edward Loos, let me talk to you about Pakistan because I think the administration has concluded that the central problem is Pakistan. How much influence can we exert over Pakistan? How much influence are we exerting now and what is the main problem there? Well, stabilizing democracy, getting clear institutions that survive and that can have some degree of integrity, a government that functions across the whole of the territorial expanse we call Pakistan. I was reading back over something the other day and I was talking to Rajeev about this as well. When Carter, President Carter, gave a billion dollars to General Zia in 1980 following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Zia said this is peanuts, which is obviously a very pointed insult to the president. We're now looking at, 29 years later, a much ballyhooed fanfare, Kerry Luger Bill, supported strongly by the administration, which will increase civilian and economic aid to 1.5 billion a year, admittedly from much, much lower levels, it's a tripling. But if it was peanuts then and look at the rate of inflation, we'd have to have some sub-peanut category to describe this. This is a $300 billion economy. It's got 175 million people. And whilst it's absolutely right for the Obama administration to focus much, much more strongly on how it can deal with the civilian side of Pakistan and governance strengthening and institution building and all the other kinds of things that come with this bill, I think that the conditions that are being attached to it and the benchmarks that Kerry Luger are going to require of the administration for how this spending is accounted for makes it look really ambitious. I mean, we've got all sorts of things covered by this bill. We've got women's health, we've got education, we've got democracy strengthening, quite apart from the separate benchmarks of reorienting the Pakistan army to the Fatah regions away from the border with India, we've got micro-credit. We've got every good thing under the sun. And my fear is that this is not just too little but it's also too ambitious, but paradoxically. So what do we do about Pakistan? Well, this is a start, but it's a very, very small start. It's very easy as a journalist to sit here and be glib and say you should do this, that, and the other. I really can't think what this, that, and the other would be for Pakistan. It's a very, very difficult situation. I do know that Holbrook was privately remarked that somebody reported that it needs $50 billion. That kind of money would help transform some sectors in Pakistan if the government was capable of absorbing it and had a plan to do something with it. But I'm sorry not to give a clearer answer. It's a very, very difficult situation and there are no easy solutions. Let me just ask David, because you've written about this.  If I understood President Obama or somebody in the administration the other day, they said they did feel that as of now we believed that these weapons are secure. But then didn't I also hear Leon Panetta say the other day we don't know where all of them are? That's right. So how can we be sure that they're secure if we don't know where some of them are? You know, these are the kinds of questions that it's always fun to ask government officials because you're always sort of waiting for a creative answer. And in fact, you have had regular assurances from government officials both during the Bush administration and now during the Obama administration. Admiral Mullen has repeated these in recent times. A relative sense of security about the weapons themselves. The U.S. had a program which we've written about extensively that started fairly early in the years after 9-11 that spent about a hundred million dollars to help train the Pakistanis to protect their weapons, train them on how we protect some of our facilities. When I was in Pakistan working on the book they described to me how they have built their own equivalent of our PAL system, the computerized links to how to make sure that you can't detonate a weapon if one goes missing. Most people I talk to seem fairly well confident that the weapons themselves are protected and the warheads are separated from the fissile material and the triggering devices and so forth. The difficulty, the thing that I hear a lot of nervousness about comes in two areas, Bob. One of them is that we're still very concerned about the materials. Pakistan is building, adding on to its nuclear arsenal probably faster than just about any country on Earth right now. And a lot of people believe that some of that military aid that we sent over the years may have well either been funneled off to that or at least freed up Pakistani money for that. And it's the materials which are worked on in the laboratories that were, of course, the leakage point for AQ Khan, one of the founders of the Pakistani program. The other is a considerable insider threat. There's been ready streams of intelligence suggesting that some people, some Pakistanis who are trained abroad are subject to some recruitment. So they would come back and work inside the Pakistani nuclear program. The Pakistanis told me when I was there there were about 2,000 engineers who have what they call critical knowledge about how to build a weapon. I think there's a lot of concern about insiders with fundamentalist tendencies. So those are the two big issues. And as Director Panetta said the other day we don't know where everything is and that's in part because while the Pakistanis don't of course trust the Indians, they're fearful of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, well they really don't trust us and they think that we always have a SEAL team hanging just off the horizon ready to snatch their weapons and that may not be an entirely fanciful concern. So I think it is really the area where you see the cost of this lack of trust. Do you want to add to that, Edward? Because I know you're so familiar with Pakistan. About the security of the nuclear weapons. I recently reviewed David's book and he knows 100 times more about that subject than me. All I'd say is that you'll probably attest that most of the designs, in terms of leaking of knowledge most of the designs for these weapons are on the internet and they're 1945 quality nuclear weapons. And the security of the Kahuta nuclear ecosystem is I think the vulnerability of it has been slightly exaggerated in recent media reports around the world. The Buna'a and SWAT might be 60 miles away from Islamabad but there's a very, very strong Punjabi army in Punjabistan, if you like. And it's I think probably not quite as vulnerable as some of the media reports have been suggesting. Rodgie and Nancy, let me ask you about Afghanistan. How bad is this situation now? I mean, is it any better than it was? Is it getting worse? Does anything we've just had to change in commanders? Can you just talk about those subjects in general as you head over there? What do you think about this situation? Well, I still think the metrics are pretty bad when it comes to overall security. I mean, in much of the south and the east of the country the Taliban have defective control of much of that territory. They sort of own the night. They effectively have cowed villagers into supporting them both through outright intimidation as well as stepping into a void that exists there because there is in most places or at least in many places a lack of effective local governance. And so the Taliban sort of step in as the local administrative force. I was out just about two months ago to the northwest of Kandahar in a district called Maywand where there is a U.S. Army battalion and was talking to some of the soldiers there and they were telling me how just a few days earlier a man had approached the municipal center where there is a company of U.S. soldiers that are mentoring the Afghan police force in that district. And the man came up and tried to get the attention of the Afghan police because his motorcycle had been stolen and the police couldn't be bothered. They eventually sort of said to him that he'd have to pay a bribe if they wanted the police to get involved. And so finally in a huff the man said, well I'm going to the Taliban because at least they'll take me seriously. It's this sort of real lack of capacity and endemic corruption at a local level that continues to bedevil the approach and efforts at stabilization there. So I think that the challenges remain very grave. One thing that we've got to look at very carefully over the next couple of months is that it's this time of year when as the snow in the mountain passes melt that Taliban fighters cross over from the mountainous frontier provinces in Pakistan into Afghanistan. But with the intensity of fighting that's occurring in the Swat Valley for instance, I'm just sort of curious the extent to which some of those fighters that might have otherwise chosen to go and fight and attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan this summer might otherwise be sort of diverting to parts of Pakistan where there are ongoing operations with the Pakistani military. And so that remains one thing to continue to watch. This was President Sardari's complaint to President Obama the other day that we're focusing so much effort and forces into Afghanistan that it's pushing more into Pakistan. Well remember that was the mistake in 2001 that as we moved forces into East that it pushed it in into the Fata and conversely there's some concern by sending more U.S. troops into the south and now push it into Baluchistan and create instability in yet another part of Afghanistan and so I think that's something to watch. Something I would add to Rajiv's point is we have a couple of things coming up. We have elections coming up in August and remember U.S. forces in the south are going to places in some areas where no forces have been before and going right into the economic base of the Taliban, the Papi production. And that's not just an economic base for the Taliban but for the government and for the warlords themselves. How do you go about attacking that? It's upwards of $4 billion industry depending on some estimates. Half of that going to the government and the warlords and so you're going to have U.S. troops who are used to sort of tackling security-based issues now dealing with economic issues too becoming sort of drug cops and so how do you strike that balance? What kind of pressure do you put on the forces and how much influence can they really have on the area? Rajiv talked beautifully about the influence of the Taliban on the region. In a lot of cases the Taliban is able to pay higher salaries than the Afghans are to their police and army. So how do you get over that problem and at the same time try to reshape the economic base of the Afghan economy? And this money, this is all coming from the Papi production from Narkata? That's right. I mean 90% of the world's Papi production, heroin production comes from Helmand province where U.S. troops are now headed into places where there have been no troops before. So we'll anticipate heavy fighting but how do you go about tackling that? People say wheat production as an alternative. The problem is twofold. Number one, Papi you planted and it's done, it's sort of minimal work whereas wheat production requires more work and secondly and more immediate if the Taliban are able to intimidate farmers into growing or providing Papi to them then it makes it impossible to say to a farmer provide wheat when he'll say you're putting my life in jeopardy. You can't protect me from the Taliban. So it comes back to that fundamental question how with only 60,000 troops in a country much bigger than Iraq do you offer security to people? Do you do the outposts as we did in Iraq and do patrols or do you figure out a way to work within a very complex local security system? I want to actually go to questions from the audience earlier than we normally do mainly because we have so many knowledgeable people and experts sitting out here and we'd love to hear some of your questions but before we do that let me just ask all of you and I did hold the answers to the short version on this. Is the policy that seems to be unfolding now that much different from the Bush administration policy or is it about the same or has it radically changed? You know it seems more similar to me than not. They spend a lot of time with the Pakistanis in recent times trying to convince them to focus on the insurgency rather than India. General Hayden is in the audience here. General Hayden spent a good deal of this last year in office trying to convince the Pakistanis to do that. It strikes me that many of the orders that President Bush issued last summer have if anything been accelerated by President Obama. I think just following up on what David said what we're seeing particularly with regard to Afghanistan is additional money being put against the problem or at least the promise of additional money being put against it but so what's going on here is it's largely sort of following through and funding some of the initiatives to a broad degree that the Bush administration had talked about but just didn't have the resources to actually fund because one reason was because of Iraq the other was in some cases just a lack of follow through but I think what we're starting to see is moving forward in a more meaningful way in that direction. One change however is the relationship that seems to be developing between the Obama White House and President Karzai. I enjoyed a very very close relationship with the Bush White House. There were regular video teleconferences between Bush and Karzai. There was a sort of a close personal friendship that had developed between the two men starting in about 2002. The Obama administration is instituting a much more of an arms length relationship with him. Those video teleconferences aren't occurring the meeting that the meetings that Karzai had when he was here with President Zardari a couple of weeks ago while very polite did not have the same degree of Bonhami that those interactions did during the Bush administration. I would just add to that I think the ultimate change and it happened really before the policy was announced was that the Obama administration came in and called this the good war the justified war the war that had to be fought so perhaps the biggest change is the emphasis and how much the administration has already sort of staked its foreign policy legacy on the outcome of this war. I haven't got much to add to that but I would say there's one positive factor in the sea of bad news recently has been the Indian election result in the last 10 days the return of the Congress government but with a much stronger mandate and I think you know if you'd looked at the possible political consequences of the Mumbai terror attacks last November you would have predicted a Hindu nationalist as a beneficiary the BJP as a beneficiary from this which would have been very very bad for Pakistan paranoia so I think this is a plus factor and I think in his wildest dreams if Holbrook could think of one thing that would help cut through the various Gordian knots that he's trying to grapple with in the region it would be dramatic progress on Kashmir to really take the sting out of the Pakistan posture towards India and that's while still unlikely quite a bit less unlikely today than it would have been two weeks ago Is the general feeling in Pakistan is that India still poses a greater threat to Pakistan than any of this internal and why is that? Are they right? You know I think Pakistan it's a very complex question that I could bore you to death with over the next hour but I mean the one Pakistan in many ways is defined as being not India it's a homeland for India's Muslims and the raison d'etre of the Pakistan army has been to reclaim Kashmir that's why it's got such a preponderance over the Pakistan budget and why it's the only really serious national functioning institution in the country so for the Pakistan military the Kashmir problem is both a cause of enmity but also a cause for celebration for the people and as wealthy and as lavishly funded as it is so if you wanted a deal on Kashmir I guess you'd need a military government on the other side or at least if you wanted a deal that's stuck you'd need the military to sign off on it you'd need General Kiani to be really intimately involved in such a deal but as I say I don't think the deal is quite so impossible as some people may imagine and the last point I'll make on that I'll talk a few weeks back about the off the shelf deal on Kashmir when Musharraf was still in power that deal's still there like Arab-Israeli problem we know what the end result's going to look like it's a question of how we get there but the Indians as I'm sure you'd agree bristle at the notion that the Kashmir issue be linked to the AFPAC issue and they made it very clear that they don't want Kashmir to be part of Holbrooke's mandate and officially it isn't although people in the State Department clearly recognize that the Kashmir issue does have a very very significant and central impact on Pakistan and then by extension Afghanistan of course the Pakistanis would love the United States to get involved and to play a role there so there remains a fundamental point of disagreement between the two nations and India was part of his I mean it was a mistake his original designation and just as a brief aside David Miliband the British Foreign Secretary went there and just before inauguration for a trip to India mentioned Kashmir as British Foreign Secretaries always do implicitly got completely hounded to death by the Indian media and a couple of days later Holbrooke dropped India from his designation there's a saying not from India that a chicken to scare the monkey and in this case poor old Miliband was the chicken Alright well let's take some questions from the audience and we do have General Hayden here with us today General would you take a question or would you like to make a comment? My name is Kami but I write for the Pakistani Spectator David I asked you a question on Don Rimsho but I didn't get the answer do you know where are American nuclear bombs and why should we expect that we give peanut to Pakistan and then ask them about your atomic nuclear weapons it's very very unfair I mean Pakistan is not our slave state we shouldn't expect these kind of things if you read Ambassador Haqqani's book you will learn that Pakistani army is very incompetent all they know how to conquer Pakistan and how to exploit their own people what do you expect how can they defend their own country with traditional weapons because they don't have money Pakistan is a practically bankrupt country after they pay their armed forces and their federal employees they have nothing left so the only option they have is to make small strategic nuclear weapons to defend their country Who would like to take that? Thanks Next time do I get a hard one Bob? What I think is interesting about what's not in the discussion right now is you haven't heard anybody including the Obama administration or the Bush administration before it suggests that they were going to reverse the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear state you did hear that in 1998 after the Indian and Pakistan tests and we had sanctions on both countries and the ostensible part of that sanction regime was that Pakistan would give up its nuclear weapons of course it's not a nuclear non-proliferation treaty as India is not and Israel is not and North Korea has pulled out of the treaty you don't hear that discussion anymore so there is basically acknowledgement at this point that Pakistan is a nuclear state irreversibly and that is why there is so much discussion right now about nuclear safety because I think we're well past that moment when any American president thinks that they're going to get them to give it up Did you have a question? Yes I'm Patrick Cronin from the National Defense University, great panel, excellent discussion, could ask many questions, let me just make one very brief comment picking up on Edward Luce's point which I think is critical because there are things that Washington can change about South Asia and South West Asia and there are things we cannot change one thing we can change is the way of development using local people buying locally, empowering local people and we're not going to do that and I hope you report that from the field as we fail to adapt quickly enough to this reality now the question though is things we can't change especially the political leaders we're dealing with both in Afghanistan with the upcoming August election and in Pakistan with Zidari to what extent is US strategy if it can be called that on the success and the willingness, political willingness of those leaders to go along, for instance if Karzai gets re-elected in August and he starts to sell his cabinet positions to unsavory people does that sell our strategy down in the next two years and also in Pakistan if Zidari really loses more political legitimacy and traction are we really back to supporting just a military government? I'll take the aft side of that I think what we're seeing are steps toward really de-linking the broader US objectives in Afghanistan from Karzai and from an expectation that Karzai will follow through for a variety of reasons one, because of just general concerns about the ineffectiveness of his administration his sometimes sort of mercurial tendencies his tendency to sort of bring in unsavory actors into his orbit most recently seen by his decision to bring in the former warlord Marshal Fahim in as one of his vice-presidential running mates so the governance focus at least as it's being articulated now and it's going to we'll have to wait and see how this actually plays out is to a degree some of what we've been trying to do in Iraq which is a far more sort of local decentralized strategy working more with local governors, local councils pushing down into sort of a district level trying to build up those sorts of institutions partially as a counterweight to Karzai and partially because the recognition that Afghanistan is a diverse country the central government historically has not always been able to project its authority in the far corners of the country and that we have to make the the parts of government that most people sort of relate to which is the real local government or they interact with more effective as opposed to sort of devoting the bulk of our energies and resources to the administration in Kabul I would just add to that when you talk to the residents in Kabul they really resent the United States for sort of foisting and upholding this the mayor of Kabul, Hamid Karzai and I think there's a recognition of that we were talking earlier about what are the biggest differences and I think one of them is under the Bush administration was very sort of top down in terms of governance and as Rajiv mentioned the now sort of a combination is top down plus bottom up and recognition of that the danger becomes, you know we go to Iraq as the model we say we reached out to tribal leaders Iraq's a lot more linear than Afghanistan you know if you're in Anbar you deal with the Dulemiz and in Samar you deal with five or six tribal leaders whereas Afghanistan is a complex matrix of tribal relationships and I think the danger becomes we end up picking one person and all of a sudden find ourselves intermixed in a tribal war that we didn't intend to be a part of and I think that will be the biggest danger coming forward but there's certainly a recognition of that that problem and I think you're starting to see this dual approach that wasn't there before and with regard to Pakistan while in the past the relationship was largely focused on Musharraf this administration seems to while, you know, keeping you know, cordial relations to a degree with Zardari ensuring that there are you know extensive you know, links with you know, the military with the ISI and essentially trying to to deal with all of the locuses of power in Pakistan as opposed to simply a a sort of head of state the head of state relationship Yes, sir Thank you very much, Mr. Shu, for an excellent panel here. My name is Mataab Karim and I'm an academic professor of demography and I'm currently doing a book on demography of Muslim countries at Pew Research Center I have some reaction to a billion-dollar remark made by Mr. Liu it was not a billion it was a 200 million actually because I was a student those days and I remember it very well. Anyways I think you're, and then what you said I really agree with all the points it's very important where are we investing in Pakistan and Afghanistan being a demographer I have to tell you some numbers unfortunately 175 million people 33% of them are youth between the ages of 15 to 29 in Pakistan about half of them are men about 30 million 30% of them are unemployed ok that makes 9 million the 30 million youth is more than the population of Afghanistan and Iraq you have to look into these issues now where are we investing where are we doing do I agree with the gentleman here military being an academic I do agree with him what do we do with these people you know they are multiplying the number is increasing we have to invest where we can take care of them 9 million unemployed people I'm talking about invest in agriculture productivity industries you see one of the major investment US is doing is bringing those young people to us to do graduate studies about 200 in a year they come from elite classes they don't go over and work back in Pakistan many of them like many of us are sitting here from foreign countries we stay here I came a long time back to study but I stayed back so what we are looking for is investing somewhere take care of the people and these young men somebody said if you don't help them they go to Taliban and they can go and become hard guns for $100,000 they can buy 100 of them so that's what is my submission thank you very much I think you are making a key point there with regard to unemployment particularly youth unemployment Pakistan is a significant issue in Afghanistan and a significant source of recruitment for the Taliban and you pointed to agriculture and that's an important thing to mention here because agriculture is really vaulted to the top of the list for Holbrook and the US government's approach in terms of reconstruction and economic assistance in AFPAC and for a variety of reasons job creation as well as in the Afghan side counter narcotics and if you look at the history of the US aid program in Afghanistan with regard to agriculture it's just heart breaking so much potential there and the program and I've spent a fair bit of time over the past couple of weeks looking at some of these issues you know it's we have not emphasized helping farmers to increase their yields, their productivity it's been very much focused on trying to grab headlines here and there with sort of export promotion and you know we're flying a plane of pomegranates out to Dubai but the real hard work of trying to work with farmers across the country in Afghanistan trying to use counterparts in parts of Pakistan to help expand agricultural opportunity there and by extension economic opportunity just that sort of work hasn't been done and so what we're what this administration stated they plan to do is sort of like a multi-hundred million dollar effort over the next few years at trying to really boost agricultural production and there's an awful lot of need for it when you look at sort of the poppy side of things you know the Taliban have been incredibly savvy Afghans aren't planting poppy just because a Taliban warlord comes and puts a gun to their head and they're not planting it simply because poppy fetches more money than other crops at the market they're doing it because it's an entire agricultural system a lot of these guys are dirt poor subsistence farmers and they can get credit upfront if they plant poppy there's Taliban kind of agricultural extension agents that show up and help them increase the yields of their poppy their futures contracts so that they know what they're going to get for their poppy at harvest time there's farm gate delivering these guys come and pick up that stuff what do we do? we do occasional sort of fertilizer and seed giveaways but we're not engaged in agricultural credit we haven't meaningfully engaged our land grant universities here to help provide agricultural extension services the defense department has admirably done some of this through the national guard program but not in a much larger way so they're huge areas in which our broader reconstruction effort has just completely fallen down on the job can I just add a couple things as long as we're in the business of numbers correction I have to make a correction on my number and I'll break it down for you the estimate 150 million goes to the Taliban 70 million to the farmers and the rest to the warlords and the government and then the economy that's 500 million it's just an incredibly weak economy and I would just add anecdotally when I was in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan one of the first places the marines moved into you would see bags and bags of wheat lined up along the street that asked the marines what are we doing with this and they just didn't know it sort of arrived and they didn't really have a plan on how to get this out how to distribute it all right, yes sir Hi, Stefan Strude from N24 a German news channel I would like to come back to the military part for a moment Secretary Gates in a recent 60 minutes interview complained bitterly about the lack of support from the European allies the German government tells us every once in a while that once they explain to the Americans how much they are doing already in Afghanistan they do understand that the Germans yes they are active and what remains unmentioned is probably the fact that the Germans are leaning back having started two world wars it's not too too popular to be too active in a ongoing war what is the view on the ground are the Germans being viewed as basically you know watching the food lines and leaving the fights to everybody else well candidly I think for the Germans because they are an RC Nord the northern part of Afghanistan which doesn't border Pakistan seeing some of the least amount of violence that they have sort of the easiest assignment and you're right there are 41 coalition countries that are participating from the American perspective there's a frustration and it's not so much just the numbers but how they operate it's sort of an approach I mean you'll hear ISAF which is the acronym that they use that the Americans will say that it really stands for ISOL Americans fighting instead of international security so that's the one you'll hear I mean I don't think it's so much the numbers which although for Secretary Gates it is but I think for the guys on the ground it's what they see they see broadly speaking not the Germans but broadly speaking coalition forces that don't go out as much to take as much risk now I think from the European side they see the Americans as reckless as shooting too quickly as tearing down doors too quickly and I think that's sort of on the ground as much as for the Secretary's numbers but I think for the guys on the ground it's that friction I think we have time for just one more question here Hello Greg Tomlin from George Washington University thank all of you for taking the time to actually visit the country before you report two weeks ago Secretary Gates asked for General McKernan's resignation do you in your opinion think that this was largely symbolic or do you foresee a significant change in theater strategy just short answers and everybody can take the chance we're waiting to see the public line that Secretary Gates took was that McKernan had done a perfectly solid job but he wanted a new set of eyes and many has chosen ran special forces for many years and one would assume would come to it with a strategy that is more based that way but we haven't seen it yet and of course strategies that are based on special force operations are often the hardest ones to see the results of special forces operations in Afghanistan have been blamed for high number of civilian casualties which have had a significant effect on public support for international forces in Afghanistan I'm not suggesting that General McChrystal will seek to implement a theater-wide special forces approach but what the overall stated strategy here is a counter-insurgency strategy and so there's going to be I think a challenge as he sort of takes his special forces background and seeks to sort of migrate that into sort of a theater-wide counter-insurgency strategy also note that I did find it a little unusual that General McKernan was essentially being drummed out of the military when other generals whose performance has been questioned by their superiors most notably General Casey and General Sanchez in Iraq were both brought back here and in the case of General Casey the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army and the case of General Sanchez I think was sort of kept around as a general officer for at least a year before he retired I mean he is the first general to be fired since McArthur so it is breathtaking I think the only thing going forward is the local press will talk that given General McChrystal's background they think that this will be a more kinetic commander that they'll see more fighting on the ground based on his background so he comes in with that sort of bias from the locals he needs his own strategy and he needs his own general I've been following the spirit of the question I don't cover the Pentagon so I've got nothing to add to what the other three have said which we're going to just close here give us a 30 second what do you think is going to happen I think I think we're in for a tough year I mean things may well turn around but you know when you put that many more American forces into Afghanistan you are of course going to see more fighting and we're going to take more casualties Secretary Gates has said if we can't turn it around in a year he thinks the American public might lose some of its its willingness to take those casualties I think the thing to watch is Pakistan it is the home game for al-Qaeda it is the home game in many ways for elements of the Taliban and I think that they may well conclude that with 60,000 Americans in Afghanistan they're much wiser to focus their energies there two things that I'm going to try to watch this year on the Pakistani side will the Pakistani military be able to engage in counter-insurgency operations what they need to do in the SWAT Valley they're still in the sort of the clear phase can they hold can they build can they actually implement a meaningful counter-insurgency strategy that's what they have to do and will the United States be able to provide the necessary support they need to mount those sorts of coin operations on the Afghan side one thing that I think we should all be looking out for is the degree to which an experiment in Wardak province called AP3 or the Afghan Public Protection Force which is an effort to work with local tribal leaders to raise local security forces you know the military doesn't like them being called militias but to do a degree that's what they are their local militia units will that be effective will that be a model that can be replicated in other parts of the country and will that enable the Afghan government and by extension the coalition to more quickly get additional sort of boots on the ground to provide local security because training the Afghan National Army is a long and complicated process and if we're looking for results over the next 12 to 24 months which is what officials at the White House have said is their time frame that they feel like they need to start demonstrating results the American people clearly before the 2010 midterms that we've got to look at whether that effort is starting to bearing fruit I'll bring the sort of narrow Pentagon correspondent perspective to it I'm looking for the effect the Iraq-Afghanistan balance my biggest fear going forward is not that we've seen sort of violence escalate in Iraq my biggest fear isn't that things get out of control or go bad in Iraq quickly but that they go bad slowly and that as we're slowly bringing down troops and escalating them in Afghanistan we potentially find ourselves mired in two conflicts and that balance so for me as a Pentagon correspondent I'm watching that how we balance those two particularly as the violence has gone up in Iraq Edward I'd simply say in that part of the world that things are never as good or as bad as they seem right now they seem bad but in Pakistan there's been a lot of fear mongering that it's going to have an Iran-style revolution or there's going to be a breaking in the chain of command coup that'll bring bearded colonels to power or indeed disintegration of the state I think it's worth remembering that in the recent elections the support for the MMA the grouping of six Pakistani Islamist parties fell from 12% in the previous elections to 5% of the total vote and it's also worth remembering that the really serious political mass movements in Pakistan of the last two years have been led by middle class lawyers secular movements and that the proliferation of free media in the country in the last few years which started under Mushara was permitted under Mushara has really continued so don't underestimate the strength of civil society out there you can look at or not strength but they don't overlook the fact that there is a civil society out there and I think we tend to overlook that and I think things aren't necessarily as bad as they seem they're bad but they're not catastrophically bad alright well thank you all on behalf of the TCU full of journalism and CSIS and thanks for the time


Like, he wasn't the Justin Timberlake he was trying to be, but like, do we even like Justin Timberlake either? Like, uh... Hey guys, what's up?  It is such a good movie. Selena Gomez's best work, I think, to this day. And I know that's like, a big statement to make, but like, come on, this was like, next level stuff, like, she peaked here. And that's not to say, that's not to insult anything else.  Out of all the Cinderella story movies, this one has gotten to be my favorite. I don't know, something about, like, Joey. I can only be one person, it's Joey! Like, I love it so much. I wanted to watch this movie because not only have people requested it, but also I think it would just be a really fun movie to revisit, because, I don't know, I really enjoy sitting down and watching these like, nostalgic movies with you guys, because we all watched it when we were younger, and I am excited to watch it with you guys. Personally, I like doing movies like this and sitting down and watching them with you guys, because usually in the movie commentary genre of YouTube, the male commentary channels have never seen them, so it's kind of like a new thing to them, they don't really understand what's going on. Personally, I do like giving that kind of perspective of the audience that the movie was targeted at, and I watched it while it was targeted at me, you know, when I was younger and holds a very big place in my heart, because it's just nostalgic and I feel like it's such a good movie. Selena Gomez, like, killed it in this movie. And also, fun fact, the actor that plays Joey in this movie is actually the singer for Zac Efron in the first high school musical, so the voice and the voice for Troy, like the singing, was actually Joey from this, so yeah. If you didn't know, now you know.  I'm 18, I got tattoos. I don't know what else there is to say about it. I posted them on my Twitter if you want to know like the meaning or whatever behind them. Go check out my Twitter, post them on there so you can see like up close, but bam. Selena Gomez was so good in this, like, come on. In her Disney days, she was a, she was a great actress, I'm sorry. Her on Wizards of Waverly Place, like, she was the it girl, she was what everyone wanted to be. Come on. This song was literally my everything. Everybody tells me that it's so hard to make it, so hard to break it, there's no way to fake it. Everybody tells me that it's wrong what I'm feeling, I shouldn't believe in the dreams that I'm dreaming. I hear it every day, I hear it all the time, I'm never gonna mount a mountain, I'm never gonna change my mind.  How can I be an artist when you can't be bothered to do your job?  She was not a mother figure in Glee, no she was, to Becky. And then she actually was a mother, duh. Wait, I think this came out before Glee. Wait, did it come out before Glee? I think it came out before Glee. I think the first season of Glee was like in like 2009. So actually Sue Sylvester based off of this character. Wow.  This is what I need in Glee. And thank God he did, honestly. Because what would Glee be without Sue Sylvester? It would be way less problematic. How many inches in a mile, what it takes to make you smile?   She was what we all wanted to be, I'm sorry. Like, she wasn't like other girls. And you know what, I was okay with that. It's like you were totally invisible. Check out my totally invisible- Not invisible on me, baby. It's right here.  This is one of the, one of the best scenes in cinema, like, ever. Like, the sexual tension between them even though they couldn't even see each other or she could only see him. Like, is amazing.  Like, this scene, I'm gonna be honest, I love the step-up series so much, but this scene could outsell the entire step-up series because it was that good.  This scene was so good. I don't know the dance, but I want to. When they go up to the mirror, I literally, oh my God, this scene, I'm gonna- I can only be one person this, shall we? Fuck, yes. The slide? The slide is everything. Oh my God. Oh my God. Like, who, who like makes this and then just like thinks of it? Like, this is amazing.  Like, oh my God. Who had this idea? Because it's beautiful.  Literally, literally, this is like one of the best scenes in cinema. Like, I'm not even just saying this to be like, I mean, like, um, I'm gonna try to like, I literally love this scene so much. It's so good. Yeah, how old is this guy by the way? Did we ever talk about that? Because she was very young while he was already like famous. And he looks like Artie in his teen years at that point.  I don't know the age difference, but- I'm just hanging with friends, you know? That's right. The new JP. Who are you? I'm Joey Parker's manager. Oh. The fame has gone to him.  This is why I did not want to come today. You're all nuts.  Like, he's kind of full of himself. He's like, I'm Joey Parker, you know? Like, there can only be one person that's Joey. What should I do, Bunch? You don't recognize the famous voice of Joey Parker, JP? You can't hear the tone of his voice of, there can only be one person that's Joey. Come on. You can't tell me like this wasn't like the best movie you saw when you were a child. Like, the best movie I've seen now. Like, come on. They're everything to me. They mean the world to me.  This was such a good movie. And also like, what are those? Like, why are there just a bowl of beads? You were amazing. But like, it wasn't just for like, no reason.  You know what I mean? And also like, why was there a bucket of random beads? If you were the girl that I danced with last night, tell me the names of the four most listened to songs on your playlist. Thanks, mystery girl.  Like, I would not know my four most listened to songs on my playlist. I could tell you my playlist. I could not tell you the four most played songs. And also like, why doesn't he give more things to eliminate some of the options? Like, hey, you have to have long dark hair. You were five, four or something. Like, he's just like, if someone knows the songs, then that's it. Like, you could have said like, a little bit more. You could have put a little bit more emphasis. God, they're all the same. But that girl from last night, special. Different. Not like any other girl before. Am I right?  He's got to be like 24. I have to look it up now because I feel like he's very old and she's not. He was 26 when they filmed this. How old is Selena Gomez? Oh, Selena Gomez was 15 years old when they filmed this. And he was 26 years old. Oh my God. Why was that okay? They kissed. They were a whole romantic couple in this. Oh my God. Like, why is that okay? You know, why did... I'm sorry, but why did directors do this to this girl? They made her do this.  Like, I'm so sorry for her because like, she was always that character. Joey?  That girl is like the same height, same hair, same everything. But I don't think it's her. I'm looking for somebody and I just don't have the time right now to talk. I got to go. I'm sorry. But it was nice seeing you.    I would just really want my like, iPod back. I know it's called like a zoom or something, but I would just like, really want my iPod back.   You don't understand, I have a feeling.   I'm like, I want it back. What was y'all's favorite Sue Sylvester song? I don't even remember which one was my favorite. I didn't really listen. I didn't, I don't think I downloaded any of Sue Sylvester songs. Serious? It just seems like the stupidest people in this movie is Joey and Mary because there are so many other solutions to prove that you are her.  Let me hit you screaming. No, because I'm in front of her house. I know you're in front of her house. I'm screaming out loud. Joey Parker. I can't get over how old he is. Like, I, it very much has ruined the movie for me that he is 26, 26 when he filmed this. And Selena Gomez was 15. Like, why is that allowed? Like, that shouldn't be allowed, you know what I mean? Like, I know it's allowed. I know like her parents probably consented to it and she probably consented to it. But it's like, ugh, like, oh my God, I feel like it's kind of weird. Not kind of, it just is weird. I'm a tear, that's all I know. I'm a little nervous, man.  Have you seen a girl here tonight that can dance? Like, you've never seen a girl dance before? Actually, Joey. I love, what if she was just like, yes.  You should go check her out. Like, don't you think that's so cute though?  That was so dramatic, the rip. I love how she went immediately into like a solution mode. Like, she cried for like two seconds. She was like, now it's time to break it down. I couldn't stop thinking about you. The way that we move together. I'm a dancer, so I guess it's in my blood. I love it when that stuff just is genetic at that point. My dad played baseball. I can't play baseball. I played softball, um, rec. I played rec softball for one season and every single time I struck out, I would almost start crying. Sometimes I did cry. So I don't think being a baseball player or softball player is in my blood just because my dad plays baseball. You know what I mean? Oh my God. I just, I can't enjoy this anymore. Like, I was really enjoying it, but he is very old. He's 26 years old. She's 15. 11-year age gap. They filmed this. Fuck. I can't enjoy this anymore. This is just creepy. It's not like he doesn't look like he's 26. He looks old. And she looks 15. Why do you feel a bit uncomfortable now? I feel very uncomfortable watching this. Especially because legally I am adult now watching this. You know, one of the reasons I came back is because I wanted to remember why I started dancing in the first place.   So you have to go to a high school to bring it back.  That's so, stop it. Turn it off now.  This is... No. Why do I keep calling this not another Cinderella story? It's not even called not another Cinderella story. It's called a Cinderella story. No, it's called another Cinderella story.  What's going on? Natalia, look.  He's okay with denying one 16-year-old, but not the other one. Oh, she brought him a little flower.  Except for... Anyone? Except for who? Anyone? No.  It was kind of like a Bruce Lee movie with no subtitles. Bruce Lee is not Japanese. A whole different language. Could have said a famous Japanese actor. Like George Takei or something. But no, he said Bruce Lee. What really sucks about falling for a guy you know you're not right for? You fall anyway because you think he might turn out to be different. Yes, you need to go away from him, because he groomed you. We're not going to pretend that this is not a movie of him grooming her. This movie is not cute anymore. I take it back. Everything I said about this movie means so great and so whatever. It's not he's old and she's young. That's literally so much all to just dance in a music video. I'm not going to get a cash prize. I'm just going to be featured. Am I even going to get a credit in the video? This is kind of a lot just to be in a music video. When was his music ballads or something? Where that would be in a music video. Imagine him just being like, I can only be one person this truly. Well that's going on. It doesn't make any sense. It's just the wrong genre. He wasn't the Justin Timberlake he was trying to be. But do we even like Justin Timberlake either? I love it when people hold their microphones like that. It's so weird. You're holding a sandwich. You're holding a subway sandwich.  That was the evil version of the Debbie Ryan.   We love each other right?  Feels a bit wrong to me if I've ever heard that. That's funny. Cause you said you forgot why you even started dancing until you met me. It's even better because no one can hear her. You know? It's like. You know what I'm saying? That's what it sounds like to everyone. They can't hear her. That is not Selena Gomez dancing by the way. That is not her. Like when they zoomed out you can tell it's not her.  Like a family dance off at like a wedding. Like when the cousins start doing a dance battle.  Like correct me if I'm wrong but as like an audience like you wouldn't think it's that like amazing right? Don't look at her like that. She's 15. Don't do that to him. He's 26. Don't do that.   You're too close for comfort for me. There's nothing going on between me and Natalia. Okay. I was ambushed. I was set up by your stepsisters. I would never hurt you. I realized that the reason that I feel like everyone talking to me is a prank is because of movies like this. I literally think that anyone that talks to me is going to prank me. Why do I think that? Maybe it's because these are the movies that I grew up watching of just the main character getting pranked all the time. I'm not the main character okay? I'm not. Why would anyone want to prank me?  That's like not even fair you know? I don't think it's fair because she wasn't like up in the lineup. She was like a surprise guest. That's like not fair at all. And she got to dance with him. Ew. Sorry. That's like really disturbing to me. I think I went on like an emotional roller coaster throughout this movie because I went into it thinking what a great childhood movie. What a fantastic childhood movie that I love and have so much nostalgia for. And I left it feeling violated because of my discovery that I found out in the middle of it. Like it literally ruined the whole entire watching experience.  Like it's just not it. But yeah, I'm sorry if I ruined this movie for you. Actually no I'm not sorry.   Like that is not okay at all. But that was the movie. I'm not even going to say anything. This was just weird to watch after like after I looked at the ages. Like it was over for me. Like that was I can't go back to watching it the same. Love Selena Gomez in this though. Like she's amazing. Like she's a queen whatever. Like I love her in this. Give this video a thumbs up. Share it with your friends and comment down below any opinions you have on the movie or the video. Preferably nice ones but not saying you are not allowed to. It's not illegal if you post something mean but it's just strongly of eyes against. Make sure you guys go follow me on Instagram and Twitter. Instagram at Tika level and Twitter at level Trin. I'm always tweeting. I tweet so so much. So if you ever want to know what's happening go follow me on Twitter. It's very fun. I think it's very fun. And please make sure you subscribe so you can see more videos from me. And you can also leave down request if you would like to request a movie for me to watch. Turn on notifications bell so you don't miss any uploads. And that is it for today guys. I will see you in my next video. Bye.


headline news update. Welcome folks we are the Dow industrials finish up four ninety three Nasdaq up four sixty one S&P's up ninety seven gold gold contract up six dollars thirty cents traded seventeen eighty five an ounce we had silver up twenty five cents twenty two dollars forty eight cents an ounce late sweet crude up a buck ninety one seventy one dollars forty cents a barrel notes and bonds a ten year note down nine ticks trading one thirty eleven thirty off twenty three a one sixty one twenty six and king dollar king dollar down fourteen ticks ninety six three fourteen Euro one twelve yen one thirteen and a half the British pound one thirty two and a half now we get over take a look at the spy what you have is this spy goes up nine and a half points you did eighty four million which they got some volume into this bottom line that contractions not as big as we thought as I thought it would be your close that four sixty eight and four sixty seven thirty five was the lows of the high that's telling me we're going after the high and I suspect you're gonna probably go after tomorrow and the X one hundred we take a look at the three Q's three Q's bottom line also up eleven and a half dollars contraction you do have you do have the contraction of volume in the Q's that's something to watch another Q's what's going to get interesting here tomorrow is this the number to keep your eye on tomorrow and the Q's is going to be the 401 now Q's had a monster day out here today and we're talking about the NDX I believe the NDX went up three percent of very close to three three point three percent three no three point zero three percent Dow is up one point eight one point four in the S&P we're up one point eight we take a look at this Q though bottom line you get the contraction happening I suspect there's two different things that are pretty cool with the Q's your low of the high is three ninety nine nineteen the swing point here is three is four oh one nine is sixteen so that's what to keep your eye on because most times if we're going to go right back down you're going to get over that level you can close under it you can have light of all and that sets up a run at least back down to where we were last week that's how that normally shakes out gold gold contract out here we traded sideways to slightly higher you did a hundred and twenty three thousand contracts up six dollars thirty cents here at seventeen eighty five right now might take gold wants to go to this eighteen and a quarter we'll take a look at the dollar dollar gave it up in price dollar had got to a price point of ninety six five fifty nine couldn't handle it have a great night folks have a safe night come back and visit Tommy tomorrow morning kicks us off nine o'clock great show we'll get them folks


ThinkTech Hawaii, civil engagement lives here. Welcome back to ThinkTech, and this is Energy 808, the cutting-edge half-moon solar. And we're talking about Molokai today, and of course our regular guest, if not co-host, is Marco Mangelsdorf, the Provision Solar and Hilo. And our special guest today who joins us by Zoom from Chicago is the CEO of Half Moon Ventures. Half Moon Ventures is doing a project in Molokai. We are so happy to have both of you guys on the show. Welcome to ThinkTech. Thank you for having us again today. Yeah. Well, Mike, you were here about six months ago, and I thought it was great to talk with you and have an angle of view building an ambitious solar project on Molokai, because Molokai isn't easy. Molokai is not like the rest of the islands in its own way. Molokai has its own persona, and it's special. And I might add that Marco has done a lot of work as a Provision Installer on Molokai, and he's very familiar with the territory. And what I'd like to talk to you both about today is this project that Mike is doing for Half Moon Ventures on Molokai. It's a solar and battery installation. Very important to move the needle ahead in the state of Hawaii. So welcome to the show to you too, Marco. Say hi. Hi, Jay. Hi, Mike. Again, I'm really pleased to be back on with both of you and especially you, Mike, because as Jay was saying, Molokai is and has been for a very long time, very near and dear to my heart, and it's great to get an update from you being the principal there at Half Moon Ventures and the Molokai New Energy Partners to learn the good, great news and kind of where we go from here after the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission gave formal approval with some conditions back on July 30th for your company and for Maui Electric to go ahead and move forward. So I'm very much looking forward to what you have to share with us. So thank you so much for being on with us, Mike. Yeah, congratulations on the approval, Mike. So can you tell us the general nature of the project and you've been working on it for a couple of years now? Yeah, we inspired this project three years ago from another developer, Princeton out of California, who had been struggling to get the project moving forward but they secured some good foundations for us. But we really didn't expect that it was going to take over three years of additional development work to get this thing across the finish line. But as everyone's aware in Hawaii that there are some additional challenges that are posed by doing business in Molokai, just geographically being isolated and there's a lot of other factors that we had to take into consideration that we don't in some other project areas. So overall, I mean, three years of development to secure the land, to complete the interconnect studies with NICO, do the resource assessment, do the environmental impact assessment, start going through the PPA negotiation process. And so there's just a number of elements that we needed to do in this particular project that we haven't necessarily been exposed to in some other places. Yeah, well, why are you into this?  Or are you into it to do altruistic deeds for Hawaii State? Or are you one of those guys who just loves the technology? Or is it all three? Actually, it's interesting. My college roommate was George McGovern's grandson. And so I got familiar with the Sierra Club back in the early 90s. But I did a different course. I studied Chinese in college and I lived in Asia for well over 10 years. And we were taking, I was working in investment banking, and we were taking a lot of big dirty SOE companies, public coal companies, oil companies.  And you could just, you know, the health impacts were extreme on people. And my son was born in Hong Kong. And so I really became like a, I just realized the world can't sustain 8 billion people driving Cadillac SUVs. So we need to do something about this. And so I actually resigned from my position in Asia and came back and we started a renewable energy company called Half Moon Power that originally was focused on utility scale wind projects in the mainland. I'm from the Midwest, Wisconsin. And we developed our initial foray with a portfolio of 800 megawatts of wind projects in the Midwest. And so we continued to grow with the industry. We went from wind to solar and then now energy storage. And we've been very fortunate to have some interesting opportunities come across our lab here since we got into energy storage four years ago. And we've kind of just stuck with it. And to us, really the missing link right now to getting 200% renewable is going to be storage. And so that's how things kind of got started. And we're not fly by night Charlottes is trying to make a quick buck out of this stuff. It's something that is permanent in nature. What kind of issues have you been doing business in various places? It's not the only place you've done projects. I wonder how you would, excuse me, I just took a trip to Dallas on behalf of Think Tech. And yeah, that helps if you drink a little water. I just took a trip to Dallas and got on a couple of planes. And before you know it, I was this, a cold. Anyway, what I wanted to ask is you've done business in other places. And Mokai and Hawaii, they're different. How have you found them to be different? Have you found resistance to the project? Have you found a business environment that is as easy as other places? I mean, it's remarkable no matter where you go. I take the view that people are all the same, you know, particularly here in the Midwest. You know, I grew up in Wisconsin out on a farm, but it was, you know, I grew up in Milwaukee. And we did a lot of wind farm development in very rural communities. And the thing about small communities is that you've got different dynamics that you don't see in big cities. There's, you know, in big cities you have anonymity, but in small towns you get everybody knowing each other. And you got generations going back and you got stories that just follow along with different families. So I think Mokai is kind of similar to a lot of the places we did wind farm development in that, you know, it's just got, you know, generations of history there between different families and politics and so forth that, you know, make it a little more quirky, I guess, than doing something in a more anonymous place like New York City. But I, you know, honestly, I think our approach is a little bit different too. We just take time to get to know people and expect it's not going to happen overnight. So we try not to be impatient. Yeah, well, it sounds like China, you know, learning the community by developing guanxi with individuals one at a time.  So what have you done to try to gain acceptance in Mokai and how well has it worked? And if you could look back now, would you change anything in your MO on that score? I mean, I would always answer that by saying I wish we would have had been able to spend more time there. I probably have made a dozen visits over the past three years, and I've literally met, you know, hundreds of people there and not 100% support at all. There's definitely a few people who are concerned about this and us and anything else that's kind of new, I guess, for the community. But we've tried our best to listen as much as possible in different formats, whether it's one-on-one or big community meetings. So we've done as much as we can physically do to kind of really hear what they want to hear. Sorry, hear what they have to say. And then, you know, we try to tailor the project so it kind of fits with their needs. But at the end of the day, these projects are all the same, whether they're in New York or Molokai. You know, you're talking about solar and batteries and the different prices, different construction costs, but it's still fundamentally the same thing. Well, has there been resistance from the community? Have people raised objections in the course of your discussions, either publicly or privately?  Yeah. I mean, again, if I had to throw out numbers and then these are don't hold me to these, but I would say it's been well over 90% of the people that we've met would have been very supportive or indifferent to the project. But there's been a few people that, you know, that are a little more close to the industry that have raised some objections about, you know, could we have done this cheaper? Could we have done this with more community benefits? There's all kinds of different things that, you know, they think that are worth discussing. And we've had these conversations and they're ongoing. It's not like we're done with community. It's still going to continue to go on. So we're going to be there for the next 22 years. So there's going to be more opportunity for us to kind of win over some of these remaining people. It's ongoing, isn't it? It's not just a matter of getting their buy-in in the beginning. You have to keep on getting their buy-in going forward. You want to maintain the right relationship with not only the individuals who are close to you, but the larger community as well, no? Yeah, for sure. No, it's, well, again, it's going to be for the next 22 years. So I may not even get around when this thing is done. It might be my kids. Well, in 22 years, I feel certain that I'll get rid of this cold. Anyway, so now you've got approval on July 30, as Marco mentioned. And the question is, what does that entitle you to do? And why can't we just, you know, put a spade in the ground and build this thing right now today? Well, there's still remaining work to be done. We have to do a complete environmental impact assessment. We have to do some more cost estimates. We're going out for bid right now to get to really fine-tune the cost price right now, and that's going to take conditional work. But we expect to break ground here in the next maybe 90 days or so. That's pretty good. There's some additional, there's still some additional cleanup work we need to do with the Public Utilities Commission and the Consumer Advocate. But we, you know, there's some remaining, we have to go and file our building and electrical permits with Valley County and so forth. So there is some additional work to be done, but it's relatively low risk in nature. The big thing for us is getting, you know, not just the PPA approved, but the PUC to approve the project as well. Oh, okay. So once you get that approval that you had on July 31, then you need another approval. You have to negotiate the purchase power agreement right now with them. I suppose you're working on that right now with Maui Electric, no? No, that's already been negotiated. That's done. Okay. The power purchase agreement is complete. That's been, actually, it's published on the PUC website. Okay. All right. Okay. So where do you, where do you expect, you know, from where we are right now, plus 90 days to put a spade in the ground, plus the time of construction completion and turn on the switch, how far is it going to be? How much time? Oh man, we're trying to estimate that, honestly. The logistics are a little bit more challenging because of the restrictions on the port. You know, this, we can't really bring certain sizes of equipment in and so forth. And we're just trying to take an inventory of what's available locally. So there's a lot of work here to kind of just find out how we can do this the most economically. But if everything goes well and it never does, it could be done in as little as eight months. It's probably going to be like next summer, third quarter next year before its operational would be my guess. Yeah, I'd like to ask Mark to come in and ask you more to flesh out exactly, you know, what you, what you have achieved so far and what you still need to achieve to actually finish the project. So it's, you know, on the ground. Oh, thanks, Jay. First, I want to say my bias up front, which is that I believe that the Public Chillies Commission made the right decision two weeks ago. There is no such thing as an absolutely perfect power purchase agreement and seeking perfection should not be the enemy of the good. And I just want to state that, you know, being a contractor who has pursued projects over the past 15 years here in Hawaii and having done projects on Molokai for 11 now that I know something about the challenges of the process from start to finish in terms of proposing a project of that magnitude which you and your team are doing, Mike, and I really do salute your perseverance and your dedication, your commitment and not a trivial amount of money, time, resources that you all have spent to make this happen. And I do think that it's going to be overall a very positive thing for the friendly aisle once it goes online and for years and decades to come.  I just want to recognize from one contractor, one developer to another. You guys are on a much larger scale than my small company here at Hilo, but I really do salute you. I know you feel the same way, Marco, but every time you see a solar panel get installed, you just think that's one less that we need to do. You know, it's going to be ongoing until we get to 100%. They say one small step for mankind. And we're going to take a small step too. We're going to take one minute break, Mike and Marco, and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk more about what needs to be done and what this project is going to look like at the end of the day, hopefully in eight months. This is ThinkTech and more specifically, it's Energy 808, the cutting edge, the half-moon solar battery project on Molokai. We'll be right back. Aloha, I am Howard Wigg. I am the proud host of Cold Green for ThinkTech Hawaii. I appear every other Monday at three, and I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. And Aloha, my name is Calvin Griffin, the host of Hawaiian Uniform. And every Friday at 11 o'clock here on ThinkTech Hawaii, we bring you the latest on what's happening within the military community. And we also invite your response to things that's happening here. For those of you who haven't seen the program before, again, we invite your participation. We're here to give information, not disinformation, and we always enjoy response from the public. But join us here at Hawaiian Uniform Fridays, 11 a.m. here on ThinkTech Hawaii. Aloha. Okay, we're studying Molokai today on Energy 808, the cutting edge. And we have Marco Mangostoff, who's a solar installer out of ProVision Solar and Helo.  And they're doing a solar and battery project on Molokai. Both of these guys have a familiarity with Molokai. So it's very interesting to talk about the one project within the view of the two business guys who do projects on Molokai. So as we left it, Marco, I think you were going to actually frame a question to Mike, and you were going to ask him about what the process has been, the experience it's been, and what the experience will be like going forward. Yeah, and I'm going to ask a little bit of a pointed question here, Mike, but not too pointed, I hope, which is I, along with you, I'm sure, read Commissioner Jenny Potter's concurring opinion on the decision that was announced two weeks ago. And she brought up a number of rather interesting and somewhat provocative points. And specifically, I'd like to hear your response to the criticism that has come from a number of parties that your company is, what you're charging in the power purchase agreement is, and this is my word, excessive or high compared to other utility skills, solar plus storage projects that have already been approved in the state, and specifically the last two that our friends at KIUC in Kauai approved with both Tesla and SolarCity and then AES. So how do you respond to that observation? In other words, why are you guys so high comparatively speaking? We've been negotiating price on equipment for several years. And during the, there's really three main reasons why it's more expensive. And a lot of it is the abundance of caution. So there's a lot of redundancy built into the system that you don't have in some other ones because this will be kind of like the base load generation for the entire island. This represents over 40% of the island's energy. So we've had to build in some extra caution. We're also being relied on for a lot of functionality in our energy storage system that's not being requested from the other projects. Most solar projects or solar and storage are just like time shifting to you. Charge a battery during the day and discharge it at night. That's all that's required of you. Those batteries are significantly cheaper. So it's the inverter system that makes it all work together. So we've been asked to provide help with ramp rate control, frequency regulation. We've got to, you know, we've got to have contingency reserved. So we've had, and we've got to build some redundant lines in case there's, you know, some weather event that causes an outage. So we've had to do a lot of extra things from the technology side that weren't required for some other projects in other islands. But the third part is, you know, just given the logistical challenge of building in a smaller island is, you know, there is some additional costs there. You know, we have a lot more planes to get, a lot more hotel rooms to bring in people and so forth that you don't have in some of the other islands. So between those three things, that is significantly increased the cost. But in general, this is a very competitive rate in my mind. So just last year, we built two solar-only projects in Rhode Island, and that PPA rate was 20 cents. And we're our blended average over 20 years is 17 cents. So even in the mainland, you're seeing rates that are significantly higher. And if you also consider that the average resident of Molokai pays close to 40, 50 cents per kilowatt hour, year over year, that this does represent a savings to people. So, you know, if you look at some of the recently approved projects, I think even in the latest RFP, I won't be surprised if some of these rates are in like the eight to nine cents area, or Oahu and Maui and maybe even the Big Island. But a lot of those are standalone solar. So it's really when you factor in the battery, which basically doubles the cost of the project, that's where that extra cost goes into. But 17 cents was kind of like the avoided cost target that we were trying to hit to be below what it cost them to do diesel ads. So, nonetheless, it may seem higher, but I still think it's competitive. And we made our case to the TUC and, you know, with reservation, Potter can approve this as well or vote in favor of this as well. You know, Mike, this raises a couple of questions in my mind. Number one is the you talked about the additional things you have to do because this would be, you know, the base generation of power for the island. Those are things that you've been required to do. That's what the implication of your comment was, right?  Am I right? Correct. And that's nothing to add to it. He said it perfectly. Okay. So that's going to cost more. It's obvious it's going to cost more. The other thing is you mentioned 2022 years. Does it stay at 17 cents for the 22 years or other increments? That's the blended average, actually the initial rate. And man, I'm sorry, my mind is not recalling. But I think it's like 13, 14 cents in the start year. And then it ends at like 22 cents. So the average cost per kilowatt hour over the term, this is how Eco calculates, you know, this is the average kilowatt hour over the entire contract. Right. So that's 17 cents. So you take the risk as it goes forward to keep it in good shape, whatever happens, you still have to provide that power at that stated agreed rate, right? So the further you go out, the more risk you take. Yeah, there's also the degradation. So you're looking at a reduction of half percent per year in the solar output just because the degradation of the cells over 20 years, at least about 20% of your generation capacity, similar figures for the storage piece as well. There's a lot of wear and tear over that term. Yeah. So is this new high-tech equipment you're using?  Is this going to be right at the cutting edge? Yeah. I mean, we've got a couple of these systems in the mainland. We're contracting with FNC Electric out of Chicago. They manufacture these converters to provide that additional ancillary services that NICO needed to help with the grade control. Yeah, it is high-tech. It is definitely high-tech, and these things are high maintenance as well. So it's, you know, compared to, you know, a plain vanilla solar array, that's very standard now.  But when you're providing, you know, kind of like microgrid controls, that is definitely in the realm of, in my mind at least, high-tech. You know, we went over to a Molokai and made a little movie there on energy in general about six months ago. And we talked with Amelia Vanderhoof. And one of the issues that came up in that discussion was some sort of notion she said that some people had where they wanted to be part of your project. They wanted to have either some percentage off the top or they wanted to have some ownership in it. Did those discussions go anywhere? What's the status of that? I mean, we continued to talk. I actually just talked with Amelia a couple weeks ago. And, you know, I consider us to be friends actually because we share the same vision of getting Molokai to 100% renewables. And, you know, we're happy to continue talking with the community about different ways to participate in the project. And, you know, whether it's financial or just having the benefits of better power quality. There are numerous ways that the community can get involved.  And, you know, we did have actually inserted into the PPA-specific language that enables, it facilitates the beginning. I don't know what that means. It facilitates the beginning of the conversation between the island of Molokai plus HIKO to talk about potentially having community ownership of the project. Well, that would be... We have, yeah. That would be a first. That would be a first where the community owns a piece of the project. Nope. Well, the KA you see is, isn't that too? That's kind of... Okay. Okay, Touche. Yeah. So... All right. You know, I only want to ask about the other community leader that you and I mentioned before the show. And that's Walter Ritty, who is a noticeable, a notable community leader in Molokai for many, many years. And I wonder what your discussions with him have been like and what kind of, you know, acceptance has he expressed of the project? Frankly, was scared to meet him because I've heard, you know, like, you know, that he could hurt me or something physically or some other way. But no, I'm kidding. He was a really nice guy and we had dinner together at Molokai Burger and with his wife and we had a really nice conversation. And he actually was somewhat supportive. I was... I didn't know what to expect honestly because I've heard so many great stories about how important he is in Hawaiian history.  I really enjoyed our meeting. And I met him on one other occasion after that as well. And he... Again, I think he's just renewable energy minded too. And, you know, he wants to see all of Hawaii get 200% renewable and stop importing oil. Yeah. Oh, yeah, he said that for many years. And a shout out for Molokai Burger. I've been there. That's where I spent some time on my movie trip. And I got to say, it's a great place. Molokai Burger, yay, Molokai Burger. It is an awesome place. So, Marco, you wanted to ask some questions about the, you know, the... What will we see in this project when it is completed? Right? And that little time we have left, I just wanted to talk a little bit about battery storage. I mean, in the trenches here in Hawaii, as throughout much of the mainland, if you happen to be a Tesla dealer, which we are, or the other major supplier of residential storage is LG Chem, the reality is that it's scarce. There's product scarcity right now. And prices have actually gone up in the past six months. So, my question to you, Mike, is what kind of battery storage will you be using and how confident are you about both availability and pricing in the timeframe that we're talking about? So, what's interesting is you're probably aware one of the big bottlenecks is not just manufacturing capacity, but it's also an over-reliance on cobalt, which comes from pretty shaky places like the Congo. So, we've actually been using LG for our project, primarily because they're so committed to the space and they've got a very mature product and they have great logistics and they can deliver travel months when you're talking about utilities and stuff, but right now this year there's been an abundance of installations going on in Korea and their home market, but next year supply looks very good. And so, we've been circling back and forth with them about supplying the cells for this particular project, but again, there's a lot of good manufacturers out there, whether it's Samsung or LG or Panasonic or Toshiba, Tesla. I mean, there's definitely an abundance of choices and we're confident that because of this number of choices, the price of storage will continue to drop, but it is taking some time for these guys to ramp up manufacturing and I wouldn't blame Tesla for all their productions going into the Model 3 to help meet their demand and they've had to make a decision strategically that, hey, we're going to supply cars, not power walls, whatever has just been their choice, but no, we've been very happy with LG. Both their pre-purchase and post-purchase services have been fantastic. Okay, well, we're about out of time, Marco. I want to ask one more question. How critical is it for you, Mike, for tax credit purposes to get this project placed into service by the end of 2019? Well, that was another reason why we argued that it was important to get this thing done in an accelerated timeframe so that, as you know, the ITC starts phasing out at the end of next year. We are also fortunate to secure a new market tax credit allocation for this and that's not something that comes out every year, so we got significant subsidies which enabled us to drop our price to the point where we needed it, so it's really important that we have every commercial operation by the end of 2019. Well, Mike, you're not only a businessman, you're an environmentalist and you have broad horizons and I wonder if you could take a minute here at the close to tell the people of Molokai and to tell the people of Hawaii why they should want to support this project. Again, Hawaii to me has always been ground zero for renewables just because it's so need-based. You've got a fantastic resource, you have a bunch of small island grids that have historically not been able to function as well as some other places and so it's just an extraordinary opportunity to demonstrate to the world and be an inspiration for the rest of the world to get to 100% renewables and it starts in Hawaii and it's going to work its way eastward from there. I mean, I live in a state that's frankly kind of retarded when it comes to renewable energy policy and I admire Hawaii a lot, just put it that way, just because of the vision to promote 100% renewable standard. Well, Mark, on me, we admire you a lot, Mike, and we admire what you're doing and we support you and let me also add that this project is somehow iconic because it's the base load in Molokai because Molokai has waited a long time to have a project like this and it will be iconic and we wish you all the best. Marco, do you agree with me? No, absolutely and I hope that we can reconvene this self-mutual admiration trio in six months, Mike, and get an update about all the tremendous progress that hopefully will be made. Thank you, Mike. Great, thank you. Thank you, Marco. We'll see you next time. We'll see you on the topic again today. Take care. Thank you. Thanks for appearing. Aloha.