i never see, no american dream in america. you just feel like your caged animal. things like that. my child shouldn't go through the program that open your eyes to tennis. if you work today on alex ah, how long has him see get in touch with the top stories on i just 0 commemorations have been held across the u. s. to mark 20 years since the september 11th attacks us presidents, past and present joint families, a ground 0 in new york to remember the nearly 3000 people killed. this is a live look at ground 0 right now at tributes in light in the distance. a memorial was also held in shanks will, pennsylvania to mark the moment when united airlines flight 93 clack crashed into an empty field. their president joe biden lay the wreath of the ceremony to honor

those killed the arrived after attending commemoration in new york. my county has more from washington. president biden shuttled between the side to the various attacks. he was in new york. then he went to shantell, pennsylvania, and finally entered his day by laying a reef at the pentagon. he was joined to new york by 2 former presidents, president clinton and president barack obama by didn't being in fact, the 4th president, who has led to the member use the remember and services to those who died and were injured. president george w bush was one of those who spoke on the day. he remember those in particular who died about applying to 93 that was brought down in an empty field near shan school . after the passengers overcame the crew and force them to land. president bush noting that the targets became riskless and saved and in new room to the numbers of people on the ground president fight and spoke in

a recorded address on friday in which he made a plea for a renewal of the national cooperation that the 911 attacks brought about saying that the one thing that came out of that was a strong sense of national unity. and he called on fellow americans to show the sign of national unity. once again, i've canister on has been on the agenda, talks between the country and russian foreign ministers in moscow to discuss how to coordinate their response. and the russia is agreeing on then as a city of moving to help and to support the afghan people. and also we see from our prospective that to their humanitarian assistance need to be independent from their particular situation over there. security officials in northern iraq say to drones with explosive struck outside air bill international

airport way us forces our station. this is the 3rd time the airport has been attacked recently. previous attacks were blamed on iranian back, iraq. he was the head of the international atomic energy agency. rafael grossi is heading to, to iran for talks with iranian officials. grossi is scheduled to meet iran, vice president, and head of the country's atomic organization. on sunday, it will be gross. his 1st visit to the country since ibrahim, when he became president new york times investigation, has revealed the u. s. may have mistakenly targeted an aid work in a drug strike in cobble on august 29th, 10 people including 7 children, were killed. the us knows he has said it was targeting, and i saw operation to his years. president says he plans to suspend the constitution and offer a new version that he has written himself. president k said to control of the government and dismissed the prime minister in july. health officials in columbia

say they're worried about a potential co would 19 search next month. columbia has run out of vaccines and many people with the 1st dose currently unable to get a 2nd shot. it comes with delta variant is on the rise and a new more contagious variance detected in colombia is also spreading. thousands of people have marched through the french capital to condemn frances cove with 19 health pass for 9 straight weekend. they say the policy is a violation of their personal freedom. people are required to present their health pass or recent negative co with test to enter cafes, restaurants, and many other public places. those are the headlines we're back in half an hour right now. it's the bottom line. ah,

me. hi, i'm steve clemens and i have a question. 20 years after the attacks of $911.00. how is the world changed and how has america changed? let's get to the bottom line. ah, it was the biggest sucker punch in america's modern history. outside in it's liter, osama bin laden had planned and executed the hijacking of commercial airlines and killed almost 3000 people in the morning of september, 11th, 2001. no one saw it coming and no one could explain it. it been loud and wanted to so fear in confusion, america. he had definitely succeeded. the u. s. response was massive and visceral, but besides decimating archived and killing bin laden, there's so much more that has happened in the past 20 years in the so called global war on terror, aka the global war on everything. america violated its own laws, is suspended habeas corpus protections for suspect it kidnapped that tortured and

rendered suspects to 3rd countries to be tortured even more. and to look at every global challenge to the lens of islamic terrorism, along the way, fortunes were made by those benefiting from massive spending on national security. like new weapons and drones, vehicles, surveillance systems, you name it, even local police departments in the us started to look and act like the military. today when civil liberties are threatened and the master valence of phones and e mails is just about normal, we shrug. so what $911.00 do to america and can america reinvent itself so that it's not chasing ghosts forever? today we're talking with political scientists and journalists, david roth cop, the former editor in chief of foreign policy magazine, and host of deep state radio, a podcast on american power, and it's global impact. he's the author of running the world, be inside story of national security council and the architect of american power. previously, he managed the international advisory firm, a former secretary of state, henry kissinger. and now he has his own, the rock cock group. david, it's great to be with you,

and thanks for joining us today. this is a somber time, a moment to sort of reflect on 20 years after one of the most major attacks on the american psyche. let's play a clip from president george w bush on what he said right after 911. the attack took place on american soil. but it was an attack on the heart and soul of the civilized world. and the world has come together to fight a new indifferent war. the 1st, we hope, the only one of the 21st century or against all those who seek to export terror and a war against those governments that support or shelter them. david, that was president bush's launch of the so called global war on terror. and my question to you after 20 years is what has that done to the american psyche in your view? well, i think ultimately it's done

a lot of damage. in the days after $911.00, president bush responded as any president would. he did a number of things that i think were completely appropriate. expressed grief. he expressed angry, deployed troops to go out and get the people who had perpetrated the crime. but the global war on terror became an umbrella term that enabled the united states to much more broadly expand this than we should have. you know, i think there is a kind of a collaboration that goes on between a terrorist and the victims of the terrorist. ideally in the eyes of the terrorist, the victim wo overreact in a ways that support the terrors narrative and weaken the victim. and that's exactly what happened with the united states. not only did we extend the war into iraq, which was entirely unjustified, and had grievous consequences,

not just for iraqis, but for america standing in the world and cost. over a trillion dollars, we expanded the mission and africana stand beyond getting al qaeda. we extended though global war on terror and to many other countries. we, as you noted in your intro, set aside american values, which under cut us in dramatic ways. and you know, 20 years later, it's clear that i think a total of 3 trillion dollars, thousands of american lives, hundreds of thousands of other lives. and you know, the, a great deal of damage has been done back and just put a button on it though. i think we can end in a more optimistic place. i think president joe biden recognizes that it's time to turn the on the past 20 years. and time to reset our priorities

and begin to undo some of the damage that was done. well, i want to, i want to talk to you about president by now want to tell our audience, you had a very powerful bed recently on this subject of overreaction. and the lack of resilience in the united states after terrorist attacks at random, the daily beast. but before that, go back to 1997, the c c. and ended interviews with osama bin laden and, and our hearing and they both were very overtly open about the fact that they thought that they could attack the united states. and that they could like a playbook get america to overreact, to undermine its own place in the world, and thus create the conditions that would, that would allow them to recruit more and to look legitimate in the eyes of people who have grievances around the world. and so i guess my question to you is the see, i knew what bin laden was saying, our national security establishment knew what been lied and was saying,

why has it been so difficult to stand resilient against the efforts of others to hijack us and make them do what we want to do because that's what you're saying. you were warning about this right after 911. you warned it again about it again, just in your recent op ed, why has this country failed to basically say, we know what you're trying to do and we're not going to do it? well, i think it's hard to do, you know, i, i think the reality is that you know, 911 was a deeply devastating blow to the psyche of the country. thousands of lives were lost. there was a lot of pain. ah, and it was natural to, to want to react, you know, in a way that was proportional to that. but of course, it goes further and you know, we live in an era in which our media tends to cheat up the

dialogue rather than cool it down at once. took days before a story was reported and reached the general public time for things to cool down. now everything happens in an instant. you know, i think one of the contributing factors to 911 and our reaction was, fox news was founded in 1996 m. assembly see was founded in 1996 google. ready is founded in 1998, the american people around 2001 past 50 percent internet penetration. this was a different kind of political atmosphere and ideas could catch fire more quickly. but point out that since then it's gotten even harder. and twitter and instagram and facebook. things that contribute to that all came 20042005, instagram,

kevin, 2010. i want to interviewed former senator george mitchell, not only about v as really palestinian situation of which he had some responsibility at that time, but the broader middle east. and he said that the unresolved issues in the middle east were so big, so deep in tectonic lea complicated that america ought to just stay away from the region that the, that the so called sam huntington class of civilizations was inevitable if we got involved and we ought to just, you know, say give us a call in 400 years. what is your view on these tensions in the middle east? are they? are they the kind of tension america can be engaged with? or are we? should we withdraw? keep our powder dry. wait for the middle east to resolve its own issues and be on the sidelines. i don't, i don't think we should be on the sidelines, but i don't think the only option we have is to intervene militarily or, you know, try to do nation building. when we do both of those things,

we have problems in the region. we have diplomatic tools. ready we have gunam and tools, we have the ability to work through international institutions. we have the ability to work with alliances of like. ready minded countries there on the ground, and i think we should do all of those things as any other internationally engaged power. would. i do think, you know, one of the things that happened in the course of the past 20 years is we learned the cost of mistakes, of, of the kind that we may, whether that's unilateralism or, or. ready nation building, as i indicated earlier, american exceptionalism need and i was quite striking earlier in this year when secretary of state blinking gave his kind of 1st address the secretary of state. and he talked about in america that was kind of post american exceptionalism. he talked about in america that was more humble, that was more willing to engage through international mechanisms that was more

willing to listen. that was more willing to approach other countries as peers. and i think, you know, if there are positive consequences of the past 20 years, it is that those things are lesson learned. and this is an administration that is learned does lesson. so how does he take those lessons, david? and i'm, and i'm, you know, i believe that you're sort of have something on, you know, the, your thoughts on something very important. but i think a lot of the world looks at that as a function of american weakness of weakness after the moment the failure in afghanistan. and now we're willing to listen to people cuz we've been beaten down the chinese talk about it. well, america's in, you know, a period of strategic contraction from the world. how do you turn that around? you're an expert in this, you're a pro and washington and turn that into a position of strength and enlightened policy as opposed to something that looks as if we're just basically talking our tail and walking away. i don't think it's

strategic contraction. i think it's ending irrational overreach and i think that, you know, there is a way to step away. ready from thinking the us military was the solution. every problem thinking the u. s. was uniquely able to impose its will on the rest of the world, you know, and getting to a place where we assume a role as other great powers do constructively working with them. standing up for our values where we, we must, defending ourselves where we must, but not overreaching, not trying to remake the world that america's image. and i don't, you know, i mean, joe biden's been advising advising. you know that we embrace an approach like this for a long, long time. he advised president biden at president obama and in 2009 to

drop down in afghanistan and refocused our mission. then this is not you know, something that's recent. it's something that a lot of people have known was the right thing to do for a long, long time. i know he has and you and i have talked about it in the past that, that, you know, joe biden saw afghanistan as a black hole for money, for loss of lives, and for not coming up with a winning solution in the end. some have described our afghanistan departure is something that is given, you know, a lot of glee to china and russia watching us with these problems. but, you know, i've been in the, in the wondering whether or not, you know, try and is now saying darn, you know, america's now no longer tied down in afghanistan. it's going to have greater resources and attention to deal with other issues including them in the world. am i getting that wrong, or is that how david roth cop sorta sees it as well? i think that's more importantly than, than what i might say it. i think that's how joe biden said that it's not an

accident that we've pivoted from getting out of afghanistan in the month of august to focusing in the month of september on investments that may total as much as 4 and a half trillion dollars into the united states in our infrastructure, human infrastructure and making our systems more resilient against climate and fighting climate change and making our systems more resilient again, cyber attacks and focusing on a competitiveness. you know this, this is one of those hinges of, of history or at least of american foreign policy or domestic policy, where the president of the united states has saying, we spend 3 trillion dollars. busy on futile wars that damaged, over the last 20 years, i want to spend an equivalent sum of money investing in us so that we can lead again in the remainder of the 21st century. and that we can face the challenges that we are sure are going to emerge over that time. that's sensible, strategic,

repositioning that again, as i, as i said earlier, is long overdue table. what about guantanamo guantanamo is still open. other presidents, including president obama tried to close guantanamo. it was his central obsession of his white house council. they failed to do so. guantanamo is still there. you could argue some people have argued that their president obama and his team got very active in drones shrikes because it was easier to do that than actually to begin to continue to increase the population of those enemy combatants. that were house at guantanamo is guantanamo remains. something that creates a problem for the sort of reset you're advocating for. absolutely does. it should be shut down. you know, where they were just undertaking the trial colleague, shake mohammed for the events of 911. and it's 20 years later. and you know,

all the observers recognize that this is a failed process. you know, we believe in, you know, the right to a speedy trial in our society. and we're not giving that in this instance. guantanamo is a black guy, just like i've a grave, was a black guy, just like rendition, and the use of torture was a black guy. and honestly, i think the united states has made a mistake. not only in keeping those things open and not addressing it. i think the united states has made a mistake in not holding us officials who are responsible for violating. busy our laws and our values and violating international law, accountable for doing that because unless people accountable for those kind of abuses, they'll continue. let me ask you a question about how we deploy resources. when we think about our engagement abroad nation building. you said we have other tools, but i remember when secretary of state, then secretary of state,

hillary clinton was in her position. she launched something called the q d d r. the quadrennial development and diplomatic review to sort of look at how america does its diplomacy, how it does and engages in development. and one of the big bottom line findings of that report is that not enough resources, we're going into the tools of diplomacy and the tools of development and many of those resources warehouse and responsibilities warehouse and the pentagon. and even then secretary of defense, robert gates said stop it, we need to give those resources to the state department. and so i want to ask this question about the militarization of everything the militarization of our, of our engagement abroad, the militarization of, of development. i remember when, when david portrays, were talk about his captains that were deployed in afghanistan, how they were essentially becoming the de facto mayers of towns and villages throughout afghanistan. and it just seemed to me something that was odd. and we've now seen how a lot of those resources have trickle down into domestic police departments in the

united states that material, et cetera. how do we undo that? because that seems to be like a big deal that we can't just say, let's just do these other tools. they have to have resources. why? you know, i think we have to undo it by, you know, recognizing the damage that it's done to us. you know, we're discussing whether or not we should spend another 7 or $800000000000.00 and defense this year. as every year. the big debate in the united states on defense spending is whether it goes up 3 percent or it only goes up 2 percent or maybe it should go. ringback up 5 percent. it's insane. the systems that we've got many of which are, are antiquated, obsolete are not a political to the nature of the future of conflict. the way that we promote people in our military is based on old models and modalities of fighting war. we don't

even have doctrines for the next generation kind of conflicts that will have like cyber conflict. when you respond, how do you respond with force if ever, to a cyber attack, et cetera, et cetera. we need a complete reset, a 0 based look at how do we do defense in the united states. and i think you're absolutely right. one of the ways that you do that is, you know, just as you would with policing, is you stop saying that the military is the solution to everything. and you start re, you deploying those funds to entities that are better position to do. it would be better off if we spend more money on development assistance on diplomacy on economic aid that gives us leverage on international institutions that assume some of the responsibilities that we've had. justice with policing. i'd be better if police were not the ones doing mental health counseling in the united states. it

was actually people who understood how to and were trained as mental health counselors. and so i, you know, i think we need to rethink that. i think we need to do so urgently and until we do, we are going to continue to have problems because the tools we've got at hand will not be suited to the problems that need solving david to come back to your essay for a minute. one of the things i've been trying to get my head around is, is the, you know, the positive political gains that fear mongers, in this political system are able to generate that they're able to win through fear mongering. you know, conspiracy theories, you know, looking at the worst of every situation. and i sort of wonder whether that has help contribute to the deep divide in toxicity in this country, which we saw in vivid display on january 6th in the insurrection, against the u. s. capital, and that is

a deeper issue of what's happening here in this country as opposed to what we're doing abroad. i'd love to just get your insights as you've got a foot in both sides of these, of these issues, america's engagement with the world, but also america's engagement with itself domestically what your thoughts are about undoing some of that toxicity, the conspiracy theories, the q and on the fear mongering it, i think that's a very tough problem steve. and i wish i had meant easy answer to it. i think what has happened in the united states is that we have created tools to allow completely separate information ecosystems to evolve. and people seeking to exploit those differences and those, the ecosystems have, you know, effectively not just deepen that divide but they've, they've created irreconcilable. ready differences and when i say people, i mean fox news. ready o a n and the q and odd people,

people in the g o p establishment. the said, yeah, sure, it's fine if we deny science. if it gives us political. ready advantage, it's fine if we deny history, it's fine. if we embrace conspiracy theories, we will elect a man who lives 30000 times as president of the united states. we'll add here to foreign enemies if it helps us get elected. will embrace countries that have values that are not our values if it helps us get elected. busy we will lie to the american people again and again and again and, and, and, and you now have, you know, how, you know, be that one of 2 leading political parties in the united states. that is grounded in lies and deceptions and untruth and denial of reality. at its core. this is not peripheral, this is not extremist views,

it's at its core. donald trump is still the leader of that party. the mendacity of others from kevin mccarthy to to mitch mcconnell is, is, is well known to the world. and so how do we solve that? you know, you solve it by educating people, teaching them to use critical reasoning, challenging the lives. ready of the deceptions whenever you have the opportunity to challenge them. but i haven't seen us make much headway on that. and i think to the extent to which we can fix that problem that will lead to decline in the united states. just as the republicans wanted to lead to decline and in ineffective working democracy country that's, that's the strategic threat we face as a country that's far more important than any overseas threat. ready we might see,

well, david ross, ca political scientists, journalists, an author, thanks so much for being with us today. really appreciate your candid thoughts. thank you. so what's the bottom line? in 1993 harvard professor samuel huntington argued that the world was headed toward a clash of civilizations. that it was inevitable that the western world and muslim world would be locked in a perpetual state of conflict with the actions of al qaeda. $911.00 and america's response to it definitely gave credence to this idea. but this dark prediction is not shared by everyone. radicals will always exist, but both sides seem to want to turn a new page in relations between the west and the muslim world. 20 years ago, america couldn't resist the efforts by been locked in to turn the country into one obsessed with terrorism. could it happen again? could a small non state act or hijack the entire national security apparatus? again, the truth is that many folks are easily captured by fear mongering. we see it every day in american politics. my guess has confidence that joe biden can lead america in a different direction. but i'm not convinced. sadly,

the answer is really yes. the same type of reaction could happen again, and that's the bottom line. ah, it was meant to be that day. did you hear a car was going on quickly, but a project attack stunned the world and the u. s. president, a guy came in and whispered something into the president's ear. what did he just waited for the school children present? the events of september, the 11th defined the world. they grew up in just a huge moment. these are their stories. $911.00 witness on al jazeera we understand the differences and similarities of culture across the world. no matter why you call out era who bring you the news and current affairs.

use me . ready on has him secret in doha, with the headlines on edge data. commemorations had been held across the united states to mark 20 years since the september 11th attacks us presidents past and present joint families of ground 0 in new york. to remember the nearly 3000 people killed. this is a live look at ground 0 right now with the tribute in lights in the distance.