amy: from new york, this is democracy w! t unitedtates hato puni tse respsible fo thesattacks. >> there is no higher mission an finng osama bin lade >> theerpetrators of teorism on unrstand thuse of fce. >>hey knewll along none eveention--

toe, that the who reason'm er here. >> any power without constraint always leads to abuse. y: this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. today, a five-part net -- five-part netflix documentary dives deep into the attacks, the response from the u.s.. both at home and abroad. we speak with the filmmakers who interviewed survivors, veterans, soldis in afghanistan, eleant coanders a afghan officis and wlords. th we spk with yl hiorian muel moy ,,bout his new book, “humanehow the ited stes abanded peace and reinvented war." >> american war remains extreme the violent. during the last 20 years of the war on terror, a new kind of american war emerd, that is more

legalized, more humane and endless. as joe biden pulled troops from afghanistan, he made clear that helans to continuehis new fm of war, a counterterrorism war that hasxtended in time and expanded in space and shows no signs of stopping anytime soon. amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the world health organization called wednesday for a global halt to third doses of covid-19 vaccines for the rest of the year. w.h.o. chief dr. tedros adhanom ghebreyesus said wealthy nations should instead make limited vaccine supplies available to poorer countries. >> we ha been calling for vaccine equity from the ginning.

not after the richest company -- richescountries have been taking care of. i will not stasilent wn the companies and countries that control the sick -- that control the global supply of vaccines think the world should be satisfied with leftovers. amy: the biden administraon has repeatedly rejected the w.h.o.'s calls to halt booster shots until medical workers and other at-risk groups can be vaccinated in poorer countries. white house press secretary jen psaki spoke wednesday. >> our view is that this is a false choice, and the united states has donated and shared about 140 million doses with over 90 countries, more than all other countries combined. amy: on wednesday, u.n. officials said the covax initiative to bring vaccines to poor and middle-income nations was falling further behind its initial target of 2 billion doses this year. covax is now projecting about 1.4 billion doses delivered through december.

meanwhile, vaccine equity activists are cheering moves by australia's government to support a suspension of intellectual property rights for covid-19 vaccines. australia's trade minister said this week the government now supports calls for a temporary waiver of vaccine patent rights at the world trade organization. such a move would require consensus at the wto, where germany, the united kingdom are blocking the move to allow generic versions of vaccines produced by companies including pfizer and moderna. president joe biden is set to lay outis administration's six-point plan for managing the u.s. covid-19 crisis. biden's speech at 5:00 p.m. thursday evening is expected to focus on ways businesses, schools and government agencies can enact stricter policies on covid vaccination and testing. the official u.s. coronavirus death toll has topped 650,000. on average, more than 1,500 u.s. residents are dying of covid-19 each day.

in california, the los angeles board of education is expected to pass a measure today that would make l.a. the first major u.s. city to mandate covid vaccines for students 12 and older. in florida, a judge has ruled for a second time in favor of parents who successfully challenged republican governor ron desantis's ban on local school districts ordering mask mandates. the ruling came as the american academy of pediatrics reported covid-19 cases among children surpassed 250,000 for the first time since the start of the pandemic. nearly 2,400 children were hospitalized in the week leading up to last tuesday meanwhile a pre-print study by columbia university researchers published in nature estimates over 100 million u.s. residents had a coronavirus infection at

some point in 2020, nearly a third of the population, and about five times as many cases as the official toll of 20 million infections. around 200 americans and other foreign nationals are scheduled to fly out of afghanistan today for qatar, as international passenger flights from kabul airport are expected to resume. tens of thousands of afghans, including many who qualify for u.s. special visas, are still hoping to evacuate but their fate remains unclear. meanwhile, the taliban continues to form its government, restoring its "ministry for propagation of virtue and prevention of vice", stoking fears the new regime will again use control and violence to suppress women's rights and enforce strict morality codes related to dress and daily activities for all afghans. this is an afghan student and activist fariba bikzad.

>> the taliban came. people die because of poverty and misery, depression and despair. i am a student, a civil society activist. people have been terrified. people can't understand what are they are dead or alive. they are like walking dead. amy: in france, a trial got underway thursday for 20 men charged over the 2015 attacks in paris that left more than 130 people dead and hundreds more injured. the most prominent defendant is salah abdeslam, who's believed to be the only attacker who survived the coordinated assaults on bars, restaurants, a sports stadium and the bataclan concert hall on november 13, 2015. during his first courtroom appearance wednesday, abdeslam said he gave up his job to become a soldier for the islamic state. 19 other suspects face charges of helping to

provide guns and cars to the attackers or helpi to plan their assault. the pridenof human rights campaign, alphonso david, has been fired for advising former new york governor andrew cuomo on how to handle the sexual harassment allegations he faced before cuomo's resignation last month. alphonso david was the first black president of hrc, the country's largest lgbtq organization. he previously worked as a legal advisor in cuomo's office, where he was part of an effort to discredit accuser lindsey boylan, according to the damning report issued by the new york attorney general letitia james. in virginia, work crews removed a monument to confederate army leader robert e. lee near the state capitol in richmond thursday, more than a year after democratic governor ralph northam ordered it taken down. hundreds of onlookers cheered as the 21-foot

statue to general lee was taken off of its pedestal and cut into pieces. this is richmond resident charles otey. >> this is a long time coming. i am a native of richmond. i've been passing through and seeing it and it is time to come down. it is a moment of joy for me because it represents so much oppression. amy: former president trump blasted the statue's removal, saying in a statement quote "our culture is being destroyed and our history and heritage, both good and bad, are being extinguished by the radical left, and we can't let that happen! if only we had robert e. lee to command our troops in afghanistan." trump added. general robert e. lee was a staunch defender of slavery who led the confederate army

to its defeat in 1865. the civil war killed an estimated 750,000 people. in mexico, 17 patients at a public hospital in hidalgo state died this week after torrential rains caused a river to burst its banks, flooding the area and leaving the medical crews without power. most of the victims were covid-19 patients who had to be evacuated through flood waters. in brazil, a record drought fueled by the climate crisis is drastically reducing crop yields and deepening an energy crisis for a country that gets more than half its electricity from hydroelectric power plants. officials say water levels are at their lowest level in over 90 years of records. >> the water crisis is a direct consequence of the climate crisis. caused by deforestation. amy: a pacific typhoon

became one of the most rapidly intensifying storms ever observed. it is now the equivalent of a category five hurricane and it is threatening the philippines as it tracks towards south east asia. here in the united states, the death toll from hurricane ida and its remnants has reached at least 82, with 52 of those recorded in the northeast, which saw major rains, flooding and even tornadoes. new orleans has lifted its curfew 10 days after ida battered the town, as power is slowly being restored to more customers, though hundreds of thousands remain without electricity outside the city. the biden administration is expected to push for a major increase in solar energy production, going from less than 4% of the nation's electricity use to 45% by 2050. climate activists welcomed the news but said the 30 year timeline is far too slow and called for biden to follow through on his

climate promises by ensuring the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package passes, even as conservative democratlike west virginia's joe manchin have refused to back . and in western canada, environmental and first nations activists have been staging a months-long anti-logging resistance in vancouver island's ancient forests. land defenders with the fairy creek blockade are calling on others to join them in canada's largest act of civil disobedience to save the remaining trees, which are hundreds of years old. >> not only is it important to protect these trees currently, from industry coming in on territories where they are stealing natural resources from indigenous people, but we also need it for the old-growth because they have

the most water intake that they can hold that actually helps climate change and prevents forest fires. we need that more than ever right now. amy: over 800 arrests against the activists have been recorded since april, with police beating and pepper-spraying the land defenders. canada has experienced firsthand the ravages of climate change. in june, the town of lytton in british columbia was flattened by a devastating wildfire one day after posting a record-shattering high temperature of 121 degrees fahrenheit. june's heat wave is blamed for up to 500 deaths in british columbia. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. when we come back on this 20th anniversary, we will dive deep into a documentary series that looks at the attack and its aftermath. ♪ ♪ [music break]

amy: "don't blame me" by

charlie parker. this is democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we are both in new york. >> welcome to our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. amy: this week marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 tax on the world trade center in new york city and the pentagon in washington, d.c., and we begin today's show with an exhaustive new five-part documentary series on netflix that examines the attacks as well as the response from the united states at home and abroad. the film was released just after the taliban seized

power in afghanistan, and it features a wide range of interviews with survivors of the attacks, u.s. officials, former cia members and veterans, as well as soldiers in the afghanistan national army, taliban commanders, and afghan officials, warlords, and civilians. is is thtrailer r "tning poi: 9/11 a the war onerror." the loust noisi had ereard. >> pies of ttory ntinued toomeogether i've never seeanythi like this. >> i whierednto the preside's ear, americas undeattack. >> i'm cvinced lour tion wilnot prevt cts oferrosm -- litary actionill not preventct of trorism. >> keep movin >> before 9/11 d afte 9/11 >> in the 1's, wwere

fixated t new world orr that wld sprea democry througut the rld. >> 9/11 oughwar home itade amera afraid. they sa take much as we can. >> this w the eleronic rsion of an uuthorize governnt rate your use. >> the was higher missio than finding oma bin den. >> the pertrators f terrorism only uerstand the use force. >> ty knew a alo, the major oblems that were goi to prest thselves. >>o one evention 9/11. to me,hat is the whol reason'm er her >> any power witut consaint alws leads use. >> stember1 chand the world. let's thinkhroughur actis tod sohat th doesotpiraout of

control. amy: the trailer for "tning point: 9/11nd the war on terror," a new 5-part doseries on netflix. we are joined now by its director brian knappenberger, the award working filmmaker -- award-winning film maker and co-executive producer mohammed ali naqvi, the award-winning pakistani filmmaker. we welcome you both to democracy now!, and welcome back brian. brian, let's begin with you. this is deep, comprehensive. it starts with the attacks on 9/11 but then goes back in time and moves forward over these 20 years. you were among the last to interview members of the afghan army, as well as the peop who now comprise the inner circles of the taliban leadership. can you talk about the scope of this series and what you are trying to do with it? brian: yes, and thank you

for having us on. the 20th anniversary of 9/11, what we wanted to do was tell the story, not just of what happened that day but how we got there and where our response to those attacks took us as a country. 9/11 was one of the most transformative geopolitical eventsf my life and on the first anniversary, i happened to be a -- to be in afghanistan creating one of my first films. i always wanted to look at the war on terror and the war in afghanistan in particular. to do that, we go back in history and start with the soviet invasion of afghanistan, in which the cia created proxy war with the soviets by supporting the mujahedin. the fortion of al qaeda, the collapse of afghanistan into a bloody civil war after the soviets leave afghanistan. we trace the increasing

violence attacks of al qaeda throughout the 1990's and we frame all of this with firsthand accounts of people on the day of 9/11, what happened that day. i think primarily what we have looked at, in the series is what comes next. we trace the wars in afghanistan and iraq, enhanced interrogation and torture programs as well as the effect of 9/11 on the united states, mass suspicion and surveillance, islamophobia and we try to look at the full range of what 9/11 meant, both where it came from and what choices we made after 9/11, where that led us. nermeen: mohammed ali naqvi, if you could say a little more about the focus in the film, at least in the early parts, only effects of the

soviet occupation, what transpired in subsequent years. one of the points the film makes is that it became very common in some countries to believe that the mujahedin actually fought the soviets and defeated them, despite the fact that 2 million civilians were killed during the soviet occupation. could you say what you think the significance of that has been? mohammed: i think it is highly significant in the sense that we got a chance to explore the narrative beyond the binary narrative of good versus evil that existed post-9/11 in the bush cheney years. as brian was saying, we got to look at how we got to this point andne of the

pivotal questions the documentary asks us is why do they hate us and i think the united states and other powers had a big hand in creating these mujahedin, empowering them, giving them weapons and giving them a lot of money. no one really appreciated the effect that this was going to have later, and so it was important for u to feature that and show that in the documentary, feature subjects like the afghan warlord and others, and the part that they played in defeating the soviets and the implications of what was going to be the reaction of backing different types of warlords in afghanistan and

how that contributed to al qaeda and the rise of the taliban. amy: i wanted to play a few clips from the series because of the timeliness of this. we hear from the soldis withhe afghanational army. thenly thinthat exts that e taliba beeve th haveon thi war. e unitedtates is caping d ty shoulde handed t keys tohe door of this cntry. thecan come an establh their o emira. even if t americans withaw tir fors, we are prered. filouruties -- t fill o duties,e will stanto defenour couny as lg as the islood i our boes. we will not rrender e couny to thealiban. >> ts is oight, th is my count, my pple, my

ar. thiss not e old afanista this is the ne generation, the young generation, and the new army . amy: so those are members of the afghan army. this is another clip from "turning point." a former taliban leader and former afghan vice president, discussing what will hpen aftethe u.s. departs ahanian. >>heoment ericans leave ahanist and the forcesre not here, national terrorism will come back and all the investment that haseen madenough in atand ove19 yearsill all be ge. -- made in ghanisn over years wl all be gone. >> the outco of th

occupaon of afgnistan. wh the aricans leave, the outce of the cupati must be destroyed. esblish new government that is acceptable for all the people of afghanistan. amy: that is the taliban leader who was one of the key negotiators with the united states and then before that, the former afghan vice president. mohammed ali naqvi, if you could talk about the circumstances of these interviews, when you did these, because of course now, deeply relevant though they happened before the taliban took over afghanistan. mohammed: we were actually filming outside the united states. we also filmed in qatar and doha. we also filmed in

afghanistan and pakistan. the vice president, we filmed in november 2020 and the taliban leader, we also filmed in november 2020. this was in kabul and at those times, the negotiations were still happing, a in facthe taban hadained mar ound andhey were qui arroga during their negotiions witthe ahan governnt bause the ft thathey weren a posion of pow and thedidn't haveo conced much. that ti, i think the u. was just ying to nd a wa out, just to exit.

this was around the time that we introduced them -- inteiewed them. amy: and there comment, brian knappenberger, saying we will destroy everything the u.s. left in afghanistan. brian: it so striking to hear that. it was powerful at the time and it did go back to that time. there was a lot of talk about a potential coalition government. our interview with him suggested something otherwise, that the outcome of their occupation, meaning the afghan government must also be destroyed. those were chilling words, and very striking up against the words of massoud, who called it accurately. very moving interviews we did with afghan soldiers,

who it genuinely seemed felt like they could make a stand against the taliban. as you can imagine, those interviews changed dramatically, almost by the week right before we published the series on netflix. nermeen: mohammed, could you talk about how you made the decision to interview people? how did you select th people to interview? this film has been receiving excellent reviews and is one of the top 10 viewed series on netflix at the moment in the u.s. one of the criticisms that has been made is that the documentary focuses far too much on u.s. voices and only politicians in afghanistan, not so much victims or survivors of the war. mohammed: for me, this was

quite a significant project to work on. when i met brian and eve, and executive producer on the series, i immediately jumped at the chance because a lot of my body of work was informed by 9/11. it was a very seminal event in my life, being a muslim american and being in new york at thatime, it really informed the trajectory i body of work was doing and a lot of the work i did do was specifically related to 9/11. with this, i wanted to look beyond just american voices, and i think ryan and the rest of e team were very amenable to my suggestions of actually featuring some afghan voices like warlords

and some of the politicians, but beyond that, we also featured voices such as the drone attack victims in pakistan and of course powerhouse member of parliament and women's rights activists. we did feature all of those diversvoices bause we wanted to have a more robust and well-rounded picturef afghistan,nd beyd thatjust t region well. how americaforen policy affectedhem, and i uld defer bri in tes of me of th editorialo sit -- some of the editorial things. nermeen: could you respond also, brian, to the question of how interviewees were selected?

brian: i would push back on that a little. we got a pretty wide range of interviews in afghanistan. we were inside the peace talks at doha, we talked with the taliban and with afghan civilians, some who were in guantanamo bay, some who were drone attack victims. we tried to get as broad a picture as we could from the afghan side, including a historical side, interviewing different figures, things like that. i think we tried to get as broad a range as psible the series, and that was a priority for us. amy: something that didn't get a lot of attention in the united states this week as we come to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is what is happening in guantanamo.

the so-called guantanamo trial. i want to go to a clip from "turning point: 9/11 and the war on terror" that features the u.s. assistant attorney general talking about former vice president dick cheney. >> going back to the white house when cheney was chief of staff. at least that far back, cheney developed a very robust view of a president's powers under the constitution, especially as related to national security and war and his basic view is that when it comes to war and national security, the president is in charge and he can do what he thinks is necessary, and congress basically can't get in the way and if congress does get in the way, the president can ignore it. that was his legal view. it was an absolutist view of thepreside's per in

wartime. >> it ll be vitafor us to useny meanst our disposal tachieve r objeive. >>hat was ighteninto me. it w frighning hear the vi preside of the united stes publly on a televisi show whe he shld have en calli the naon down,e shouldhave be dressured,e was ping theressure,pping e ante. i feared we wouldo things that would be to our demetra -- betaur debt -- be to our detrint. amy: this comes as the five men accused of plotting the september 11 attacks appeared in a guantanamo bay military court tuesday for the first time in over a year. the resumption of the pretrial hearings comes just days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the attacks. the case against the five

men includes suspected mastermind khalid sheikh mohammed, has been riddled with procedural problems including the admissibility of evidence that was obtained under torture by cia agents. the pre-trial hearings, which have been prolonged for at least nine years, were suspended in february 2020 due to the pandemic. the selection of a military jury will likely not begin until next year. brian knappenberger, in the documentary series, you interviewed the lawyer who has since resigned, saying guantanamo is in outer space when it comes to the u.s. justice system. exactly why these men are still being held there, khalid sheikh mohammed, has been put under sleep

deprivation for nearly 200 hours. talk about what is happening now. brian: that is a big part of the series. we trace guantanamo bay, the decisions that were made in orde to initially bring prisons th are, -- prisoners there, why it was chosen in the first place, but we knew about it at the beginning and we go through and understand what we know about it now and what was going on, but we al focus in o the militar commissions process which has been a stop and start process over the years, which has been described to me as a kind of potemkin village set up, where people have been in this military trial process that has never really worked well. the person you mentioned was assigned to be counsel to

khalid sheikh mohammed, and he believed the system was set up against him right from the beginning and eventually couldn't be a part of it in a conscientious way. he left that position. it has been ongoing for a very long time. you are correct that part of the debate has been evidence that may or may not have come from torture and whether that is admissible but it is striking that 20 years after 9/11, we are still wondering about what to do with the people who attacked us, and i think the fact that it has just tarted up again now underscores that point -- just started up again now underscores that point. nermeen: following up on what you said, it is not just that the film details

the problems with the testimonies given under torture in guantanamo, but also a very good background on how people were selected by the u.s. military, to go to guantanamo in the first place and the problems associated with getting the wrong people as a result of the bounties that were offered. could you talk about that? brian: it is one of those striking things that you go back to and realize, so much of the war on terror, you may be got our press release he or a story here or there, but that was one thing that was very striking, how people were rounded up and afghanistan. there were leaflets dropped from airplanes, sort of promising rewar for members of al qaeda warm for people to turn in people,

and that was tragic and ended up being a tragic part of the story because people would turn in their enemies and neighbors that they didn't like. it was abused in all sorts of ways. mark fallon in the series, describes it as a lot of people were just turned over in the rush and fear and anger that came out of that time, a lot of innocent people got swept up and sent to guantanamo bay. it is a disturbing part of that story. amy: we have just a minute but ryan knappenberger, your previous films include the anonymous activist collective, anonymous and the story of aaron schwartz, and that is significant, given the point that congress member barbara lee makes and we will have commerce member lee on

tomorrow, the sole member of congress who stood up against the authorization of the military force, right after the 9/11 attacks, but she talks about how the authorization of military attacks was used not only to attack places like yemen and somalia but to create a surveillance state at home. can you end there? brian: i think the vote that you just mentioned was one of the most courageous legislative votes in my lifetime. to be the only person that stood up against the a umf at that moment when the entire nation was almost unified in their hger for war, it just shows a leadership that we don't often see. i was profoundly moved by that and that is one of the first people i mentioned i wanted to interview when we started this series.

she got many death threats, she describes it in the series as the kind of pushback she got was very significant. but she was right and history has proven her right. i was surprised, very surprised when i asked albeo gonzal, one ofhe archects of thau abou iand if shoul get riof it. ias surised by at, i dinot expe him to y that but ts opeended call for warhat has broughthe unit states troops a over th world, jusneeds to end. it is the resnse abity ofongress ok wars a aumf has been a way ound th and it is long past time to get rid of it. amy: brian knappenberger, director and mohammed ali naqvi, coexecutive producer

of the five-part netflix docuseries, "tning point: 9/11 and the warn terror." next up, we speak with a yell historian, samuel moyn, about his new book, “humane: how the united states abandoned peace and reinvented war." stay with us. ♪ ♪ [music break]

amy: "right back where we started from." this is democracy now, democracynow.org the quarantine report, i'm amy goodman with nermeen shaikh. we spend the rest of the hour with author and yale university history professor, samuel moyn, who has just published a remarkable book titled “humane: how the united states abandoned peace and reinvented war." it looks at how the united states created a world of endless wars and helped reinvent the rules of war. the book came out earlier

this week, just after the u.s. withdrawal from afghanistan after nearly two decades of deadly occupation and days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the september 11 attacks and the launch of the so-called war on terror. professor samuel moyn, welcome to democracy now! it is great to have you with us. start off by talking about this revealing title, “humane: how the united states abandoned peace and reinvented war." samuel: the united states has been at war since before existed against native people and beyond its borders and especially since world war ii, america has been at war globally but all those wars were brutal, in the extreme and there were no rules prohibiting brutal conduct, by design. what happened after 2001 is that in the midst of an

extremely brutal war on terror, a new kind of war emerged, one in which for the first time, it was important to americans to see their wars fought more humanely, in conformity with international rules that prohibit torture, tt limit civian death. the worry is that even though this represents a kind of progress, it also helps americans sustained war and help make the war on terror endless. even though jobiden has withdrawn troops, he has promised to continue the war on terror in other ways. nermeen: sam moyn, you also make the argument that a more humane war, this idea of a more humane war has accompanied an increasingly interventionist foreign policy. if you could elaborate on

that and also the fact that you detail in the book of the role of human rights organizations in advancing this view. human rights watch, which you say initially didn't take any position on war, but then came to support certain humanitarian interventions. samuel: i would start the story with vietnam5,hich was a much more brutal war, illegal in the international system, but also a blatant violation with lots more torture than the war on terror and a lot more civilian deas, and there was an antiwar movement in response to it, and the revelations of the massacre which were so horrifying added fuel to theire of that antiwar movement then george mcgovern, the peace candidate, the last peace candidate we've had in this country, lost badly and

democrats came to learn the lesson, the wrong lesson, that they needed to be as interventionist as the republicans, whom they were fighting for power. we see across the leader years of the cold war and into the 1990's, high-minded rationales f american intervention, even though many of these interventions like the kosovo bombings, violated the international rules that prohibit the use of force and the question i am posing is whether we have forgotten about those rules even as we have come to focus on the rules that say once you go to war, you can't fight brutally. human rights watch is an excellent examp of the imbalanced priorities.

when it began monitoring wars in the 1980's and 1990's, it promised never to take a stand on whether the wars themselves are unjust or illegal, but they did say they would monitor whether wars are conducted illegally, wheth there is torture, excess collateral damage. it is also true as y mentned that human rights watch has sometimes strayed from that commitment and endorsed some great power wars but my question is whether alongside groups like human rights watch that we need monitoring the conduct of wars and how they are fought, whether we need to get back some of the antiwar sentiment that was present in american history at least intermittently before. after all, the laws of war

are incredibly permissive. what they allow states to do once war begins is extrrdinarily violent, even when it is supposedly humane. also remember that soldiers die, not just civilians, on both sides. our ancestors sometimes said really need to keep war from happening and it is that lesson that we have stopped learning in the age of the war on terror we have let the humanity of our wars compensate for the fact that they just keep on going. nermeen: one of the other arguments you make is that -- and this is a continuation of the effect of the vietnam war, that once the draft was ended in the u.s., the military here embraced humanitarian laws of war in an unprecedented fashion. you write quote, a self humaeyes asian of armed force without precedent in

the history of any great power. could you explain why that was the case. samuel: this later period was pivotal for the morality of how war is fought around the world. partly they were all kinds of new states after decolonization, and they were made up of people's who had been the victims of brutal american and european wars for centuries, and they demanded more humanity. europeans had stopped their empires and relied on the united states to protect them, and so they were in position to ask for more humane wars now that they were no longer fighting them. americans, including in the military understood that military force had to be inflicted in a more ethical or at least more optically

humane way, because -- was such a public relations disaster for the military. people were shocked before it was permissible to inflict the most kind -- the kind of most brutal violence on their enemies, especially if they were nonwhite enemies, around the world and americans celebrated when that violence was perpetrated. after milai, understood had to accept some nstraints on the way it fights in the name of being ab to claim that it was it was a moral force. -- focinon how was ught, sooo the milary which oneso kp its ssions going, was willing to aept some constraints

on h those missions are conducted. amy: i wanted to turn, professor moyn, to president obama's nobel prize speech. it was 2009 when former president obama received the nobel peace prize at oslo , norway. this is a clip from his acceptance speech. >> we must begin by acknowledging the hard truth. we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. there will be times when nations acting individually or in concert will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. wherforce is nessary, we have a moral and stregic inrest in binding ourselves to certain rules of conduct. even as confront a vicious aersary tha abides by rules, i

believe the united states of america must remain a standardbearer in th conduct of war. that is what makes us different from those who fight. that is a source of our strength. amy: that is what makes us different from those we fight, that is the source of our strength. you repeatedly referenced this nobel acceptance speech in your book. any talk about the significance of this and the intensification of the drone wars? samuel: what fascinates me about barack obama is that he was a public moralist and he thought public about the moral significance of law, in particular, and he talked about it in that extraordinary address as well as the one f years later, defending the use of drones.

obama famously wanted to see himself as an heir of martin luther king jr.. in some ways he was. but where king had disputed the use of force when it is immoral, going to war in the case of vietnam, not just how american force was used, obama ignored the first issue or justified eternal war and focused on the second, as if how americans fight would guarantee the moral propriety of the endless wars they are still fighting today. when it came to 2013, he gave an equally remarkable speech at the national defense university. amy: let me go to that clip,

because we happen to have it. in may 2013, at the national defense university, the one interrupted by an act of protest from codepink's medea benjamin. >> when we went -- we went on -- >> can you take the drones out of the hands of the cia? >> we are addressing that, ma'am. >> i love my country.

i love the rule of law. drones are making us less safe. >> i'm going off script, as you might expect. the voice of that woman is worth paying attention to. obviously i do not agree with much of what she said and obviously she was not listening to me in much of what i said. but these are tough issues, and the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong.

amy: that audience member, i daresay he knew exactly who she was codepink's medea , benjamin. saying thousands of muslims that got killed, will you compensate the innocent families, that will make us safer here at home. she said i love my country, drones areaking us less safe and keeping people in indefinite detention is making us less safe. samuel: it is such a morally dramatic moment t least because you might wonder after that exchange, which one of them really deserved thnobel peace prize. what i write about in my book because i think that moment was in a way, the climax of obama's presidency, at least judged as a moment when he was morally reflecting on his deeds, he conceded that

there needs to be some controon war andf you listen to her, mainly what she is asking is less inhumanity, what is amazing and that obama hself goes on in the speech to say maybe the problem is not so much the brutality of the drones but that we are fighting endless war at all. because he says, these kinds of wars will have effects not just on our victims but on the pertrators too and he anticipated and that address the coming of donald trump as a kind of consequence of what happens when nations fighendless war and sadly we are still doing it. nermeen: could you elaborate on why trump is in effect of that and this war? samuel: as spencer ackerman

and others have written and talked about on your show, wars fought are never without consequences or -- for the states that fight them. we should be concerned first and foremost about those who die or those who are merely surveilled and haunted by drones and special forces, this matters because it is essential that when biden gave his two speeches, defending the pullout from afghanistan, he made it utterly clear that while giving up on failed counterinsurgency, he is turning to and maybe will intensifyhe real fruit of 9/11, which is endless counterterror, no matter what the constraints of international law say, unless they require the drones to strike or the special forces to visit with

care for the victims. amy: thank you for being with us, samuel moyn. his new book, “humane: how the united states abandoned peace and reinvented war." professor and law

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