to coast, our flight was originally supposed to leave at around 7 o'clock and we got a text message. after arriving here early, that our plot was going to be delayed. hardly any place was spared nature's fury. high winds whipped through los vegas, toppling power lines and causing blackouts. well, we were working and i was ringing. and all of a sudden the light just went. while northern states are used to wild winter's unusual, freezing weather patterns dipped all the way down to normally sunny southern california. with snow falling on elevations as low as 600 meters above sea level and hail lashing los angeles county beach community. up to 4 and a half meters of snow are predicted in the mountain areas across the state. california water authorities hope the heavy snow pack will replenish reservoirs, giving farmers and residents a respite from years of chronic drought. more heavy snowfall is expected across the

state. over the next several days, rob reynolds al jazeera los angeles, ah look, might stories this out exactly. yet since russia launched its full scale invasion of ukraine event, simonton anniversary had been taking place in the capital. keith, with president brought to me as a lensky pledging to do everything to secure victory this year. fierce fighting is continuing on the front lines, rushes, wagner group of master. he says it's taken full control of a village on the outskirts of batman, eastern ukrainian village of that his god lies just outside the frontline city, which has seen intense fighting and a social media post on friday. the groups lead us at the small village is fully under the control of a private military company. china is announced to 12 point proposal for peace in

ukraine, which includes calls for an end to western sanctions and face to face piece talks present to landscape expressed hope. china won't end up, but supporting russia says he plans to meet, present teaching ping. i want to believe that china is going to side with the idea of a fair piece piece and fairness, which is our side. i really want to believe that china is not going to supply weapons to russia. this is very important. the polish prime minister there was a special guest in key for the anniversary commemorations. mattie of mar ruskie is one of zalinski staunchest allies. he confirmed the hand over the 1st 4 german made laugh at tanks to help the credit more effort hold. and we'll eventually send 14 of the armored vehicles to ukraine. human rights groups, as russian police have detained dozens of people for commemorating the 1st anniversary of the war. in moscow, at least 3 people were held by police officers for laying flowers on

a monumental ukrainian poet and some petersburg 15 people were detained in a similar situation. just a quick bit of other news, the death toll from the earth quakes. the devastated parts of turkey and syria has now passed 50000 rescue as in northern syria is still searching through the rubble of buildings destroyed it 2 weeks ago. although the headlines this, i'll be back with more news a bit later on in about 25 minutes time up front is coming out next one to 3000000. j register to vote in the 2020, pretty general. the next 10 to 30000000 more than the entire volume population in the rest of west africa. the vote to say they care about the economy insecurity and unemployment. hundreds, it would bring your comprehensive coverage of this election. the candidates and the issues in 971, a military analyst by the name of daniel ellsberg leaked to the press,

a 7000 page top secret pentagon study. uncovering years of official lies about us military involvement in the vietnam war. the leak document, known as the pentagon papers were instrumental in exposing the scope and strategy behind the u. s. war in the region. and many of the time believed they could change how the world viewed war decade later, as conflicts rage on and ukraine. you have been in the area just the name of the decision making process behind wars remains as murky. is that what we do know is that billions of dollars are spent on weapons and defense contract every year, making conflict incredibly profitable for stuff that will benefit from war. and who are the biggest players behind the war machine and up front special daniel ellsberg, the you ellsberg. thank you so much for joining me on upfront. thank you for having me. a large part of your life's work has been committed to not only raising awareness about the dangers of nuclear

weapons, but also the money behind them. in 2020 is. the panoramic raged the 9 nuclear weapon states collectively spin estimated $72000000000.00 on nuclear weapons. and we're now living in a time when the danger of nuclear war, of course, have spiked. where does this leave the movement for nuclear disarmament given how much money is that playing? all of this was kept us from having any real effect on reducing the danger of nuclear war all these years. and no one was quite effective in helping stop a above ground testing and even the underground testing eventually. but in other respects, it really hasn't been very effective. and i don't think the movement was as conscious as it should be of the money behind using the effect that had on congress . they reacted to. so it was just a question, what people want, which, which tool void nuclear war or rob. i just political of strategic aspects of

it is not needed. it's dangerous and so forth. that it came very little attention to the role of companies like allowing lockheed gracie on general dynamics and job t, as if far they really want to factor. it's like talking about climate without talking about the exxon corporation or shell or chevron. and actually that is the weight. climate is talked about pretty much. we just don't fish fact. and we are facing a large flows of money directed at keeping the status quo, which is the status quo of extreme nuclear danger. especially in times of crisis like this and of climate movement toward an abyss. basically, the end of our current civilization, or creech, we shuffling with people around the world in talk about the threat of nuclear war in this abyss that we're headed toward. and that's certainly

a piece of another piece of it. is war in armed conflict. it's taking place right now is plaguing multiple countries. you can see that ukraine, you got yemen, you got some malia, you got the ethiopian list, goes on. but behind wars like that are a weapons industry that you just alluded to. that was worth $531000000000.00 worldwide in 2020. and as of this recording, while the version of ukraine intensifies the stock prices of general dynamics like he martin, as you mention, northrop grumman, r raytheon, they recently hit their 5 year highs. so as we talk about war, we also look for who benefits from war? can you help me unpack that little bit who's really benefited? is the older latin slogan, cooley, bono, who benefits going all the way back? when will you can nameless, coalesce century world war one? the loans by j. p. morgan to the british for arms, for the british,

it had to deal, or even had lost the war to some extent. j. p. morgan would have gone bankrupt and wilson, our president, could not allow that to happen. that would have been a financial disaster. and that goes on from there on, in particular whoa, whoa, who benefited from vietnam going on as long as it did? or if kind of stand right now, the war that we're supporting in yemen through arms to saudi arabia and the new e eyes keeping it, truly genocidal war going on, or enormous massacre. and i think with very little benefit except to the arms manufacturers. people asked, why do we learn from our failures in vietnam and afghanistan and elsewhere in the answer is, who has a lesson to learn? those floors were very profitable for the people you name for lucky raytheon, northrop grumman and the others are they have anything to learn. i'm afraid that

right now, there's 2 major purposes that will keep the war. they can keep the war and ukraine going. as long as the war in afghanistan, not in the way that is being waged now. but by a kind of guerrilla, we're that we're supporting that we support, as we did against the soviets in afghanistan for 10 years. and he asked the ukrainian people would be ground to bits in the course of that as the afghans were . and yet, it's very profitable for the people who are supplying those weapons and keep going . there is one other major motives that affects these things. in particular, in europe, and that is that r u. s. role in europe who are not after all, a european nation. and we has no particular rule in a european union. but in nato that's as the mafia says, cosa nostra our thing. we control natal pretty much,

and nato gives us an excuse to reason to sell enormous amounts of arms to now to the formally warsaw pact, nations which had only 2nd raid or obviously soviet weapons altogether from the moment that the berlin wall came down, lockheed representatives were in warsaw showing them on a need for f. 20 twos, and for other weapons right there. against who as the russians are reasonably asked, actually, russia is an indispensable enemy in your nothing else can rationalize sustainable enemy that, that, that's that fascinating language. break that down for me, the, an indispensable. and what does that mean? it means that you can't really justify new trident submarines or i she be amg that northrop grumman is making a whole new life she be up against ian or isis or i l. cater. ah, nature sto cutters. as rationale for multi 1000000000 now dollar arms budget. only

russia has to target any sophisticated arms to fight against. you don't need advanced 5th generation fighters against people who don't have any aircraft or fighters of their own, or sophisticated ones, but russia and now china and for the future in particular, to offer noxious arrival or a competitor, but shown who could be painted as an enemy against whom you have to defend. and of course, who now in the last 2 months has just been a bonanza for the armed people. because at last, you've made a russia look an offensive, ah enemy of some kind. who has to be defended against which, latest weapons, with new weapons. and of course, russia has its military industrial complex to maintenance fast. they remind me of the black arts poet, gills got herons that everybody loves peace. the problem is you can't make no money

off of it. you know, in the past few months, more than 5600000000 dollars has been poured into ukraine in the form of military aid from the u. s. from the u. k. and from the e. u. we seen similar situations in the past when u. s. arms were used by libyan in syrian opposition groups. but what happens when those conflicts are over or seemingly over? oh, where did the weapons go? it didn't go 1st. it's a long time before these contracts are over, as you know, in afghan, a santa went on for 20 years, and it could good much longer. in libya, what we did was supply a lot of weapons to people who, in turn, sold them to other insurgencies in the, and terrorist groups and others throughout africa and elsewhere. and of course, our efforts in afghanistan armed in effect against the soviets isis, or i should say al cater and then later isis. so he things have low back effects on

heaping in mind. he didn't have these amps industries. that would be wrong to say they didn't invade ukraine cook and did that. however, they, in their people, they were influencing and the government were willing to risk a war like this coming from their policies which were attract provocative in terms of making it likely that the russians, any russian leader would eventually react against it. however, illegally trust. as we reacted when khrushchev put missiles in cuba, jewish new tires and those missiles did not, in fact, threaten our security. and i say that as someone who was looking at precisely the problem in the pentagon, at that time working for his mcnamara said, hey, it's not a security problem, missiles into one. it's a political problem, political good, but i want to nick, this is somewhat at this stage, foreseeable, right?

i mean after thing, what happens in syria would thing, what happens in libby or we, as you've done, we could go back decade prior. the weapons end up in the hands of folks who as physically we wouldn't want to have them. and yet we continue either to fund them directly or by proxy. so i guess the question for me is, why do we allow that to happen in ultimately? what happens to these weapons? what kind of considerations given to what happens to these weapon when it comes to and who the lee is that we're talking about? it's not just, it's not a century, the taxpayers are the citizens who are, by the way, regrettably willing to see the deaths of others who don't look like us. ukraine is getting much more concerned about the casualties in the war crimes because it is not a brown muslims that are being victimized here by the russians in this case. but it's white christians and that they're like us and to see them in such anguish and

terror that creates a public pressure that i wasn't here before. but in all these other cases, as i said, oh, what's the problem? we hear that matters. the ones that provide the large campaign contributions and it provides the personnel at high levels and these ranks benefit fine from them. there's no problem. i may not be very successful, but a failing war is just as profitable as a winning one. in fact, in someplace better cause it goes on forever. as you see, the winning is over 3 with when you say the libby is, is the prime example. i where and to some extent, afghanistan, where the weapons fanned out to other people that provided opponents to an adversaries. but is that bad? multiple adversaries are also good for the military industrial complex,

not only in our country in europe as well. it's not only americans who sold these weapons, though it is mainly these oversee the french, the others. and the russians have big arms markets in the world. according to the institute for policy studies last year, the average american taxpayer gave about $2000.00 to the military with over $900.00 going to corporate military contractors. in contrast, the average taxpayer contributed about $27.00 to the centers for disease control and prevention and barely $5.00 to renewable energy. how do you advocate for peace when so much taxpayer money is going to will call it the 5th republicans in particular, are very resistant to spending on social welfare or of

any kind for people or anything that in any way seems to compete with private industry. the one thing you can get republicans to bunch of money for is allegedly national security, even though almost none of these weapons actually add or even relevant to our national security. but they are relevant to making threats against russian. you need russia later, china will be a big enough militarily to serve the purpose of the necessary, the indispensable enemy. but now it was hard to keep the cold. we're going fully at full speed with russia as an enemy in the 90s, in the early part of the century. so now it's back and was back before the attack on russia. but now pollutant has fit into that in a way that i think was not unwelcome to our military industry if they didn't actually want it. i'm sure they could even count on russia actually invading

another country like to have russia objecting and complaining and posing and threatening to invade, as he did a whole year ago with, with, with troops on the edge of ukraine in belarus. all that was good for business and it doesn't, by the way, it doesn't justify putin's aggression at all. he's did to have reason to feel in the longer run treatment every russian security in terms of weapons so close to their borders. like the weapons in cuba that we objected to. kennedy had no rigid increasing trigger threatening to adventure on that. and russia has had no legitimate recently for invading crane, but time. nevertheless, we've pursued a policy that was warned against going back to the mid ninety's by 1210 another c

founder of the cold war. and trish, who should issue an indescribable error blunder mistake or to make an enemy of russia by moving especially into ukraine of some of the u. s. as top spies and military generals with ties, the defense contractors end up as intelligence analysts on various news channels. when they retire, for example, former c, i a director john brennan became embassies senior national security and intelligence analysts. i see you shaking your head. i can't wait. what you're going to say. and former c i a director michael hayden became a national security analyst for c and n a. how much does this compromise what the public is told about war? what else? what that stake? well, it depends what you think the purpose functions that really is in times of war, in our military society. their function pretty much is to sell the public on the need for more weapons and the need to intervene in this country are media is

ultimately controlled by major corporations like general electric ah, for a long time. and joe, many other conglomerates basically themselves recognize her consist of big business. and as i say, laurie's good business for the media and joe, for the administration, even when it's failing, so hoof. so i'm answering your question. it's natural for them to hire these people . if they're messages to get propaganda out, who better to do it, then the military or the she a people, if you want, endless war, which in effect, the wish has wanted. so this something, what happens right? what happens when citizens are only told the truth about war after the wars are over, after the information is leaked after information is the classified. it seems like

we only get this under extreme and unforeseeable circumstances and the people were trying to conceal it. so what does that mean for? well, the kinds of information that we needed to blood vietnam was represented by such as the pentagon papers, which was a study of vietnam decision making from 45 to 6768. i put that out 1st starting in 69 and then through the newspapers and 71. so that was somewhat belated, but not too long. but i put on trial for a possible 115 years in prison. and so down quite a few people, i didn't see any other big leech like that for 39 years until chelsea manning put out hundreds of thousands of files on his canister and in iraq. and she was finished 7 and a half years in prison. ed snowden, for his revelations, essential revelations of criminality. why the national security agency,

the universal surveillance, not only in our country but around the world, but where it wasn't so illegal, but definitely in some constitution in america. and so essentially a lifetime exile. so these people and daniel haile revealed the drone program, they did what they should have done just as i think i did what i should have done, but everyone has paid a penalty. very heavy penalty nodded my chase nixon actually committed so many crimes which happened amazingly, almost miraculously to become revealed towards the end of my trial that kept me from having to go to prison as he had intended with the others and say either exile or prison and that just purchase. you mentioned chelsea manning, he of course leaked information through with you leaks and now it looks like we can found feeling a size is being extradited to the united states and weekly published of course

classified information including document exposing us war crimes in iraq and afghanistan. and publishers were integral to the information that you liked about the vietnam war. so i'm curious from your perspective, what happens if that president that you spoke to is said that allows governments to dictate what can and can't be published? well, if from a clue this way, it threatens to create a new as chris that is not distinguishable from russians to day with julian. massage ah, extradited if he hasn't yet been expedited, but it was expedited and prosecuted. convicted here. we will have heard the 1st instance of an actual journalist. i haven't been in prison for putting out the truth. i was the 1st source, former official to give information like not to join us and i was put on trial for

. but no journalist is here. we're going put on trout, thanks to our 1st amendment, freedom of the press and treatment speech, which most countries don't have as the law or a. it will be essentially rescinded if julian sanchez, successfully prosecuted. and we will then approach the state control of information such as we're seeing in russia today. all of these cases of course, demonstrate the importance of exposing the truth about what's happening when it comes to war in other matters. and of course, your leaking of the pentagon papers is a prime example of that. but to day we have an expansion arise even of this information and it's hard to decipher what's true, what's not, what's fact, what's fiction? how important is it to have actual transparency? when it comes to government actions and government decisions about war, i'm afraid that transparency and war are 2 words. don't really go to each other.

they don't exist together. in war time, the secrecy that the government carries on all the time about its own crimes and lies in misleading statements in bad predictions. reckless actions that secrecy is certainly legitimize in war because you have to keep it from an enemy. that's one of the senses in which i said at least, are indispensable, especially as, as a long term, once in a, in a cold war, we have to keep things from russians altogether. so you don't, you don't get transparency. and when people do come out, there's 2 native, if they do get prosecutor when it's coming out of the sick, part of it, which is very dismaying, is nothing much happens. it may affect public opinion to some extent component. the thing doesn't try policy or whether

a word can be ended or not. i hoped it would. in fact, in my case, nixon was so concerned that i might put out his secrets, which i did have, but i didn't have documents to prove it. but he thought i had documents into shut me up. he did domestic crimes against an american me, which actually figured far more politically than the millions of other people we were killing in vietnam. but a crime against an american counted more. unfortunately, when these things have come out, i have to say not much is change. so there's a problem with the audience, with the citizenry. you could say with our species. and i actually, i do say that our willingness to support unquestioningly a leader, especially when he or occasionally she can point to somebody threatening security.

and she, us to set down public information about it in order to people go along with that pretty well. and when they find out it not to any of our own soldiers are getting killed as in kansas, then they let it go on indefinitely. as friends them was 20 years ukraine. i think if it, if it devolved down, if the russians came in, war didn't get out, which i don't expect them to, to wish. and others will be supporting a guerrilla war, which could be costly to the ukrainians. as the guerrilla war that the moves are deemed put up that we supplied against the soviets in afghanistan, that costs a 1000000 and a half afghan lives. and i would hate to see that imposed on the ukrainian people one under any circumstances. i've been through a war like that in vietnam, and i saw what we did to insurgents in the way a bomb pushed several 1000000 lives that has not yet been the price in afghanistan,

no matter what we're hearing about or crimes which it well could be. so and negotiated outcome in which concessions are made on both sides. however unsatisfactory, it might look to many people on both sides could save hundreds of thousands to millions of lives. and i would like to see that happen. i don't think it will go. i don't think it will. wow. and on that sobering note, i want to thank you for your time, daniel ellsberg. thank you for joining us on a thank you. all right, everybody, that is our show up front. we'll be back with well, hasn't been done before. can be done even better, as long as a human being is doing it. you can do it,

no matter how you possibly it looks. it's you to put in the effort to put in the lock and you also have to be patient with me. i am the cutting the continuum, kenya, and then also the assistant coach. we are the only ice team in east in central africa, b as the i francois progressing pretty well. we had managed to play in some international games. then when it came in, the ice rink was closed and it's the only ice rink in the country. a unique yet endangered biodiversity lies in the heart of one of ecuador, tropical jungles. there was a lot of misinformation about the animals that we have here. and now they're probably just becoming by others of conservation in their communities out there, a journey deep into the rain forest to follow a scientist and her team's effort to save the flora and fauna. so precious in the region. women make science, ecuador,

hidden treasure on al jazeera. oh, [000:00:00;00] a we know what's happening in our region. we know have them get to places that others cannot. i would only be a guy by the only purpose that's going on with the way that you tell the story is what can make