05/24/23 05/24/23 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we believe there is a space and opportunity here to have a bipartisan, reasonable budget agreement that the house and senate can vote on and we can get the business of the american people done. amy: negotiations continue over raising the debt ceiling in order to vent the united states from defaulting on its debt for the first time in history.

we will talk to economist jeremy sachsen about it. then "blood on his hands." an investigation by nick turse. >> i spoke with more than 75 cambodian witnesses and survivors of u.s. military attacks. amy: is henry kissinger turns 100 years old saturday, we will also speak to pulitzer prize-winning historian greg grandin, author of "kissinger's shadow." all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. in south carolina, republican lawmakers have approved

legislation banning abortions after just six weeks of pregnancy. the bill now heads to republican governor henry mcmaster, who says he will sign it into law as soon as possible. the measure includes a limited exception for fatal fetal anomalies, the patient's life and health, rape and incest to seek an abortion after up to 12 weeks of pregnancy, but doctors are required to report their procedure to law enforcement. the bill passed after a filibuster led by five women state senators, including three republicans, failed to block it. u.s. surgeon general vivek murthy issued an advisory warning of social media's profound risk of harm for young people and calling for immediate action from lawmakers, tech companies, and parents to keep kids safe. an estimated 95% of 13- to 17 -year-olds are on social media. those who are on it over three hours per day face two times the risk of depression and anxiety. additionally, social media could overstimulate the brain in ways similar to addiction, as well as cause sleep and attention

issues. murthy said young people's brains are especially vulnerable to the detrimental effects of peer pressure and constant comparison. lawmakers have passed a number of bills recently to address child sexual exploitation online, while other measures around parental consent, age verification processes, and other safety procedures are being discussed. murthy and other health experts also acknowledge social media can help young people who feel isolated or ostracized be more connected to a larger community and mental health resources. florida's republican governor ron desantis is announcing his 2024 presidential campaign today -- presidential bid today during a twitter spaces livestream with elon musk. david sacks, republican donor and ally of both desantis and musk, is set to moderate the event. desantis has been polling behind donald trump thus far as rights groups warn of a desantis presidency amid his mounting crackdown on lgbtq people, black people, reproductive rights, and immigrants in florida.

in related news, a florida elementary school in miami-dade county has banned amanda gorman's poem "the hills we climb," which she read to widespread acclaim at president biden's inauguration. the ban came after a complaint from one parent. more than $160 at -- more than 160 doctors at elmhurst hospital in queens are on a five-day strike citing unequal pay with their counterparts. first-year residents at elmhurst earn nearly $7000 less than first-year residents at mount sinai hospital on the upper east side of manhattan. it's the first strike by doctors in new york city since 1990. councilmember jen gutiérrez, herself born at elmhurst hospital, spoke about the issues faced by elmhurst physicians during a recent council meeting. >> my argument about the hospital, it serves the majority immigrant community. serving immigrants and elmhurst hospital has a very unique program and a majority of the

residents are international. what i'm trying to uplift is the blatant connection of serving immigrant communities by immigrant physicians on the level of care they're receiving to do their jobs and we really need to bring the alarm around equity. amy: in more labor news, the union representing some 1500 members of the new york times' newsroom has reached a tentative agreement with the newspaper after over two years of negotiations. the deal, which the new york times guild called groundbreaking, would grant an immediate pay raise of up to 12.5% for the lowest paid workers and raise the minimum salary to $65,000. an investigation led by illinois' attorney general has found hundreds of catholic church clergy sexually abused nearly 2000 children between 1950 and 2019, a number of cases far higher than the church had publicly disclosed. illinois attorney general kwame raoul released the findings tuesday, acknowledging that the statute of limitations in many of those cases has expired. the probe began in 2018 culminating in a report that's

nearly 700 pages long, detailing how 450 catholic clerics in illinois' six dioceses, including the prominent archdiocese of chicago, abused hundreds of children with impunity for the past seven -- 70 years. the report also accuses catholic leaders of covering up the abuse . meta, the parent company of facebook and instagram, will sell the gif-sharing website giphy to shutterstock for $53 million, at a loss of over $260 million, after an order by british antitrust regulators. in other antitrust news, a federal judge has ordered american airlines and jetblue to end their partnership in the northeast, siding with the justice department which argued the alliance would reduce competition and lead to higher costs for travelers. the justice department also has a pending anti-monopoly suit against the $3.8 billion merger of jetblue and fellow budget carrier spirit airlines. in australia, family members and supporters of julian assange

rallied in sydney as they say momentum to free the jailed wikileaks founder is at its peak. >> it is about julian assange but it is also about press freedom, all our freedoms, and the fact he exposed a crime that i was horrified about and he is the one in trouble, he is the one in prison and yet he exposed a war crime which no one has done anything about. amy: today's action in sydney was supposed to coincide with a visit from president biden for a quad alliance meeting with leaders from india, japan, and australia, but biden cancelled his trip amid ongoing negotiations over the debt ceiling. julian assange wife stella called on australian prime minister anthony albanese to do more to secure the release of her husband, an australian national, as his health rapidly deteriorates inside london's belmarsh prison, where he awaits possible extradition to the u.s. to face espionage and hacking charges. facing up to 175 years in prison

if convicted. albanese has said he is doing everything he can, while a group of australian lawmakers recently met with u.s. ambassador caroline kennedy to push for assange's release. china and saudi arabia have boycotted g20 meetings held by host country india in the disputed military upright -- region. in 2019, and in a government stripped the muslim majority region of its status as it seeks to fully bring it under indian rule. hundreds of people rallied earlier this week in pakistan. pakistan's foreign minister visited the region and addressed the legislative assembly. >> india is misusing his position as chair of the g20, a form created to address financial and economic issues with utter disregard for the security council resolution, the u.n. charter, and its principal. amy: press freedom groups have

called out on the crackdown on journalists. a new study warns the earth is entering its sixth mass extinction due to the massive global loss of biodiversity triggered by human activity. the report, written by researchers at queen's university belfast in ireland, says nearly half of the planet's animal species are now in decline but that unlike past mass extinctions, the present one has been entirely caused by humans. in more climate is, countries in the middle east and across the gulf region are more vulnerable to unprecedented extreme heat due to worsening climate catastrophe. that is according to new research published by the nature sustainability journal, which also says poorer communities are particularly at risk. meanwhile, another study warns nearly half the population of phoenix, arizona, would be in need of immediate medical attention for heatstroke or other heat related illnesses if the heatwave coincides with a

power blackout spanning multiple days. other cities would also be at risk as blackouts nationwide have more than doubled since 2015, while heat waves and extreme weather patterns intensified due to climate change. over 130 u.s. lawmakers and members of the european parliament have sent a joint letter to president biden, european commission president ursula von der leyen, and u.n. secretary-general antónio guterres demanding the removal of sultan ahmed al jaber, the head of the abu dhabi national oil company, as president of the upcoming u.n. climate summit cop28. the lawmakers, which include senators ed markey and bernie sanders, say in the letter -- "since at least the 1960's, the fossil fuel industry has known about the dangers of climate change posed by its products and, rather than supporting a transition to a clean energy future, has instead chosen to promote climate denial and spend millions of dollars to spread disinformation." meanwhile, climate activists are

ramping up acts of civil disobedience and direct action to draw attention to the hastening crisis. in britain, the group fossil free london disrupted shell's annual shareholder meeting tuesday, storming the stage and triggering chaotic scenes as protesters confronted investors of the oil giant. >> congratulate yourselves for record-breaking floods, droughts, and heat waves. welcome to shell where you are complicit in the destruction of people's homes, livelihoods, and lives. welcome to hell! but i, ladies and gentlemen, i refuse to accept your hell on earth. amy: this week, the people's health tribunal found shell and total companies guilty of

genocide and ecocide in communities in south africa, nigeria, mozambique, and uganda. this comes as oil activist have been leading slow marches on london's major streets and bridges, disrupting traffic. in italy, climate activists with last generation doused themselves in the street in front of rome's senate building in mud as the death toll from last week's record-breaking floods has risen to 15. in geneva, switzerland, some 100 protesters manning a ban on private jets dissented on the international airport, blocking entry to an aircraft exhibition. a greenpeace campaigner said there was a recent rise of 64% in private jet flights in europe. >> the climate crisis is escalating it every day. even in europe, we had droughts all winter long and now summer storms are starting. at the same time, the superrich, very small elite, keep producing as if there is no tomorrow.

it needs to stop. amy: a ban on domestic short-haul flights between many major cities. the move in an effort to rein in carbon emissions will apply to routes where train alternatives exist. and typhoon mawar made landfall on guam with a category 4 hurricane, the strongest storm to hit the u.s. territory in decades. most of guam lost power earlier today as extreme winds and torrential rain hit the island while meteorologists have warned of life-threatening storm surges. authorities ordered residents in coastal regions to evacuate, with some shelters already reporting they're at capacity. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. coming up, economist jeffrey sachs on america's wars and the u.s. debt crisis. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: climate protesters singing "go to hell, shell."

i'm amy goodman. i am joined by democracy now!'s juan gonzalez. congratulations on the graduation of your daughter. juan: great to be back. welcome to all of our listeners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: negotiations are continuing in washington, d.c., over raising the debt ceiling. the united states faces a default on its debt in early june if a deal is not reached between the white house and congress. on tuesday, house speaker kevin mccarthy privately told republican lawmakers he was "nowhere close" to an agreement with the white house. mccarthy and president biden had met at the white house on monday after biden cut short his trip to asia. mccarthy is pushing for sweeping budget cuts and new work requirements for recipients of government programs, including social security, medicare, medicaid, and snap -- the supplemental nutrition assistance program.

the republicans, however, are not proposing cuts to one of the biggest drivers of the nation's debt, the massive u.s. military budget. according to the costs of war project at brown university, u.s. wars since the september 11 attacks have cost over $8 trillion. a separate report by the group estimates 4.6 million people have died since 9/11 as a result of the wars in afghanistan, iraq, pakistan, syria, yemen, libya, and somalia. and over the past 16 months, congress has approved more than $113 billion for ukraine following russia's invasion. we are joined now by the economist jeffrey sachs. he is the director of the center for sustainable development at columbia university and president of the u.n. sustainable development solutions network. he has served as adviser to three u.n. secretaries-general and currently serves as a sustainable development solutions advocate under secretary-general antónio guterres. he recently wrote an article headlined "america's wars and the u.s. debt crisis."

professor, welcome back to democracy now! talk about what is happening in washington, the historic possibility that the u.s. could renege on -- could possibly not lift the debt ceiling and what that means and how that fits into the budget that republicans want cut in the budget they not only want not to cut but to increase. >> great to be with you. it is startling that since the year 2000, the debt the u.s. government owes to the public has gone from about 35% of our national income to nearly 100% of our national income, or gdp. that has been dramatic because we have been engaged in nonstop wars literally since the start

of this new century. afghanistan, iraq, syria, libya, yemen, and now ukraine. we have spent a fortune. but no president has said to us, these wars are so important that we should pay taxes. they just put it on the borrowing. as the watson institute study has shown that you cited, the one at brown university, these wars have cost us around $8 trillion. that is direct military outlays, ancillary costs, the veterans medical expenses. this has been a very significant portion of the rise of this debt . another significant proportion was the wall street bailout in 2008 and the pandemic costs. but the wars have been a huge deal. it is bipartisan.

this is that republicans or democrats. neither party wants to talk about the elephant in the room, which is that we are currently at an incredibly destructive, disastrous and i was a avoidable war. you mentioned the $113 billion. there is more to come if this administration gets its way. they are not talking about this in these negotiations, they are talking about putting -- from the poorest people in this country and continue the warmongering and feeding the military-industrial complex. that is why i wrote the article because it is shocking. it is both parties that are not talking about the real issue here. juan: jeffrey sachs, if you could talk as well, you talk about these as wars of choice, what you mean by that?

also, the issue of the pressure now to "modernize" u.s. military to face potential conflict with china as another strategic plan that will resort -- result in more military spending the in the future? >> these are not only wars of choice, they are wars of lies because we have never been told the truth about what these fights are about, why we are doing it. of course iraq was famously on completely phony pretenses, but that is not the only one. all of them have been based on lies. when it comes to ukraine, we knew our diplomats new and mourned that the continued pressure by the military-industrial complex to expand nato to ukraine would provoke war. but they never told the american

people that, they never explained it until this day they have not explained what this war is really about. you think about libya. again, lies. no explanation. you think about syria. not only was the whole syrian effort a lie of the united states, it has never even been explained to the american people that this was an operation that president obama ordered the cia to overthrow the syrian government. it failed and it was strongly costly and destructive. so these have been wars of choice and wars of lies pushed by the military natural complex, neoconservatives in both parties. now we have new drumbeats of war , not only as if ukraine wasn't devastating and threatening enough with nuclear annihilation, now we are talking

war with china. unimaginable. it could end the world and yet this is normal discourse in what passes for grown-up discussion in washington, which is not grown-up at all in my opinion. juan: i wanted to ask you, ukraine. you have written often about this whole way the american -- top officials in the us government as well as the media talk about the ukraine war and russia's injury, invasion as unprovoked. this whole issue of being an unprovoked war? >> i know "the new york times" has used the word "unprovoked" regarding this invasion 26 time in its columns. they don't talk about the truth, which is that our own diplomats -- u.s. diplomats, including cia

director william burns, who wrote a memo that was released by wikileaks in 2008. his 2008 memo said, this is existential from russia's point of view. if we continue to push nato enlargement to ukraine, this could have absolutely dire consequences. our diplomats have known this all along, but it has been a politicians, the military-industrial complex, the big companies that have been championing nato enlargement. that is a lot of weapon sales if you do that. even though the risks are completely understood inside the government by serious people, they are just not heated and this has been true about ukraine all along. up until the end of 2021, vladimir putin put on the table and draft u.s.-russia security

agreement that was based on don't expand nato to ukraine. and that has been russia's refrain for 30 years and yet we don't heed it and now we are $113 billion into this. it is horrible for ukraine. we have trapped yet another country in the middle of our lobbying campaigns because this is not going to work out well for ukraine. it is a disaster. it is like how it worked out for afghanistan. so this is what is really going on. i wish "the new york times" would carry some truth in this to explain what this is really about. amy: jeffrey sachs, been critical of russia's brutal invasion. i'm wondering how you see this ending now? and as we started, if you could talk about how you see this debate on lifting the debt end

ing? >> this war is going very badly. there were tens of thousands of deaths in this bakhmut battle just now that russia has won and ukraine has lost and the estimates are that just this one narrow battle cost billions and billions of dollars, not to mention the disaster of how many deaths. they are running through money like there's no tomorrow. if we are not careful, there will be no tomorrow. we need to negotiate a stop to this war whether it is an armistice or a real peace agreement. that is what china is saying. that is what brazil and south africa are saying. that is what india is saying. major countries around the world that are not part of this nato-russia conflict saying, stop, before this completely and

goals the whole world, which it is at risk of doing. so i think moving to negotiations now, whether it is stopping the fighting and freezing the lines, whether it is really a peace agreement based on russia leaves and nato doesn't go in, this has been the core issue from the very beginning. this is feasible and the world is demanding it outside of the so-called western what is really nato and u.s. allies world versus russia. i think that is how we would spare lives, save the world, and help the budget. when it comes to these negotiations on the debt ceiling, i really hope that these negotiators face up to the fact that our military budget, which is 40% of worldwide military spending, is brought

dramatically under control because that is really how to save money. we are 40% of the world total military spending right now and more than the next 10 countries combined. we have got to get this military-industrial lobby under control, but it is hard to do because it is a bipartisan affair. congress and the white house on both sides is beholden to this seemingly all-powerful lobby. at this all-powerful lobby is driving us to run. juan: i have one final question about both the wars in afghanistan that the united states -- when the united states backed the forces against -- when afghanistan was occupied by the soviet army, many of those guerrillas that the u.s. backed ended up returning to their arab and african countries and became the basis of jihadist groups

like al qaeda. the unexpected blowback of the u.s. support of that war in afghanistan. are we potentially sing a similar blowback from the war in ukraine which has been a country that has -- even before the russian invasion for neo-nazi and groups from europe and even the u.s.. could these foreign fighters now battling in russia and ukraine become a danger to european democracies in the future? >> of course. and it is very well put point. but i would say something even more stunning about this, it used to be said for decades that the u.s.-backed the jihadis in to confront the soviets who had invaded afghanistan. but brzezinski let us know the truth a few years ago before he passed away. that was the u.s. supported the logic dean first to induce the

soviet union to invade. we started it. we started arming and insurrection to help pull the soviet union into invasion in afghanistan. it is shocking in its citizens him -- cynicism and left that country and nonstop war and destruction from 1979 until today a completely ruined, wrecked, hunger-written, famine-written society more than 40 years because the u.s. was playing of covert game with all the backlash that you know rightly that it created al qaeda, it created so many disasters down the road but it started as a great game, as if this were a game. amy: jeffrey sachs, thank you for being with us, director of of the center for

sustainable development at columbia university and president of the u.n. sustainable development solutions network. we will link to his recent pieces "america's wars and the u.s. debt crisis" and "the war in ukraine was provoked -- and why that matters to achieve peace." next up, as henry kissinger turns 100 years old, some say he is a war criminal still at large. we will speak with pulitzer prize winning historian greg grandin, author of the book "kissinger's shadow" and we will speak with nick turse who has just released a stunning set of stories in the intercept. back in 30 seconds.

♪♪ [music break] amy: "please take care of my mother" by banteay ampil band, which formed in the cambodian refugee camp of ampil near the thai border. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman with juan gonzalez. saturday will be the 100th birthday of henry kissinger. he served as national security adviser and secretary of state in the nixon and for the administration's full today we look at his ongoing influence in

the national security state as united states engages in declared and undeclared wars around the world. human rights advocates consider kissinger a war criminal who has escaped accountability. we begin with a damming new investigation by the intercept the secret u.s. bombing of cambodia that killed as many as 150,000 civilians that kissinger authorized during the u.s.-war in vietnam. reporter nick turse has revealed unreported mass killings after examining formerly classified u.s. military documents and traveling to 12 remote cambodian villages to interview more than 75 witnesses and survivors of u.s. attacks. with this new piece, nick turse also publishes transcripts of phone calls that show kissinger's key role in cambodia and cia records connecting kissinger's actions to the growth of the regime that massacred 2 million people from 1975-1979. he's a contributive writer for

the intercept and his books include -- his new piece is headlined "blood on his hands: survivors of kissinger's secret war in cambodia reveal unreported mass killings." welcome back to democracy now! why don't you lay out the scope of your investigation and its most stunning conclusions, what you are most shocked by in this extensive report. >> thank you for having me on. the key take away of these articles that hinder kissinger is responsible for more civilian deaths in cambodia that was previously known. according to this archive that i assembled and also interviews with cambodian witnesses and survivors, as well as americans who witnessed or took part in these attacks.

the archives authors proves the unpublished in unreported and underappreciated evidence of hundreds of civilian casualties that were kept secret during the u.s. war in cambodia. most of them from nine to 69-1973 -- 1979-1973. these remain almost entirely unknown to american people today. a key to this reporting was previously published interviews with more than 75 cambodian witnesses and survivors of u.s. military attacks. speaking with them revealed details about the long-term trauma borne by survivors of the american war there. taken together, this adds to the list of killings and crimes that henry kissinger should even at this very late date in his life be asked to answer for. juan: could you talk a little

bit about the military documents you found? in your articles, i was quite surprised to discover, although i guess it was reported previously, that kissinger himself was taping or transcribing conversations that he had with the president and other officials about the war in cambodia. >> that is right. i wrote a short sidebar about this. people know about nixon's white house tapings in the watergate scandal, but most people don't realize that kissinger was also taping all his phone conversations. he had a group of aids that your aunt -- that transcribed these. through these transcripts, you can see kissinger's -- how

hands-on he was with the policies in cambodia and you can see him relaying orders from nixon. some white house officials i spoke were privy to these conversations at the time were often worried that president nixon was drunk during some of these conversations, slurring his words, and then giving orders -- in one case a focus on , to send anything that flies on anything that moves in cambodia. basically, attack everything, planes and helicopter gunship's. you can see the order passed down to alexander haig. i was able to show you can see the probable effects in the field that just after these orders came down, helicopter

attacks on cambodia with skyhigh, tripled over the course after this call. you can see the direct effects of kissinger in the white house and how it affected cambodia's on the ground. amy: i want to start with your article -- how you start your article. "at the end of a dusty path snaking through rice paddies lives a woman who survived multiple u.s. airstrikes as a child. round-faced and just over 5 feet tall in plastic sandals, meas lorn lost an older brother to a helicopter gunship attack and an uncle and cousins to artillery fire. for decades, one question haunted her, "i still wonder why those aircraft always attacked in this area. why did they drop bombs here?" can you elaborate on this? i want to say for our radio listeners, we are showing photographs, incredible goldmine

of photographs that you took when you made these. talk about the details, the specific stories. >> meas lorn's stories and the trauma she has lived with for so many years, like many others, really stuck with me. her question was one that i heard again and again. cambodian villagers in these remote villages on the border with vietnam, they had no idea why they were attacked. one day megan aircraft just started -- american aircraft just started appearing overhead. they had no frame of reference of why this was happening. they did not understand it. they soon came to fear these machines. for years on end, there were terrorized by them. i took her question to henry

kissinger and tried to confront him with questions for this article. i asked him to answer the question she had asked me, why did they attack here? kissinger responded with sarcasm, anger, and stomped off. he was able to retreat and save themselves from the questioning, but cambodians like meas lorn did not have an easy escape. another village i visited, i have some photographs from that as well, these were taken by my my wife who reported along with me. there was a village was mentioned in u.s. documents, they mentioned in attack may 1, 1970. a helicopters circled the cambodian village.

there was no village by the name. it is not a cambodian name. we set about trying to find it. we got close. we spent two days driving around local roads asking for directions. we finally turned off the highway onto a red dirt track with lush farmland that dead ended with a footpath and it took us into this village. i quickly found the village chief. i read him the excerpt from the document that during this attack 12 villagers were killed. survivors went to another location. when i asked him about this particular attack, like many cambodian villages i had visited, he was baffled.

they had endured so many strikes, he could not remember one single strike. but we thought about the date, he told me, that's right. he gestured to an area on the edge of the village and said, they attacked intensely at that time and everyone here fled. i knew we had the right place. this village chief lost his mother, his father, his grandfather, nephew, niece, other more distant relatives to airstrikes. he and several other survivors told me about relentless attacks. as he talked to me, his eyes reddened and went vacant. he sunk to his knees and went to a far corner of the room. i let him be. he eventually returned to the

conversation, but this was the type of trauma i encountered again and again. it has been decades but this trauma wrought by henry kissinger's policies was still amazingly fresh and palpable in all of these villages. juan: nick, the u.s. bombing campaign and the war in cambodia was followed by the rise of the premier rouge and also the genocide that the rest of the world associates more with cambodia than anything else. i'm wondering your reporting, what connection, if any, between this bombing, this massive bombing campaign from which was officials have never been held responsible and the rise of the premier rouge? >> sure. of course, the premier rouge is culpable for the genocide in cambodia, 2 million deaths. but as you mentioned, it has

been long over -- just how destabilizing the u.s. bombing was. there was such displacement of cambodians within their own country. such trauma caused by u.s. attacks, these relentless attacks and tremendous quantities of bombs dropped that the premier rouge used this as a recruiting tool. they went around a villages and said the only way to make this stop was to join their movement, which before the u.s. bombing was a really small fringe movement of just thousands of people. by the end of the u.s. bombing, the number was 200,000 people. the u.s. attacks were the centerpiece of the recruiting drive. unfortunately, it worked all too well. president nixon and henry

kissinger certainly played a key role in enabling this genocide. amy: in 20, during an event at the lbj library, henry kissinger was asked to respond to those who call him a war criminal. >> [indiscernible] it is a shameful infliction on the people who use it. amy: as henry kissinger turns 100 years old on saturday, in addition to nick turse who has written this astounding series the intercept headlined "blood on his hands," we are joined by the pulitzer prize-winning historian grandin, author of the book "kissinger's shadow: the long reach of america's most controversial statesman." greg's latest article is headlined "henry kissinger: a war criminal still at large at

100." can you take off from where nick turse left off, greg grandin, and tell us how, though so many have come under a microscope like nixon and his whole group in the white house, kissinger somehow escaped this by the establishment media? the independent media has long been fiercely critical of him. tell us kissinger's full story, greg. >> we would need a lot more time than we have to tell his full story. i think what is interesting is -- i mean, kissinger is they were criminal but there are lots of war criminals. the people who conducted, as jeffrey sachs talked about, the iraq war. what is interesting is that in

some ways, the crimes are ongoing. there are many, many unexploded ordinances in laos and cambodia that are still killing people. that said, i think the best way to think about kissinger is not necessarily as a war criminal. i think that is in some way it shuts down the debate. a personality so oversized, equips his context. i think kissinger's life has a lot to teach us about how we got to the point where we are in a way that again, jeffrey sachs talked about this multi-printed, never-ending endless war and military-industrial, looks. the bombing of cambodia was done in secret for five years. it was a covert operation.

people know that but i don't think it was mentioned. the reason it had to be covert is because it was illegal. it was illegal to bomb. we were not at war with cambodia. it wasn't a country that the united states had declared war on or was at war with. the reasons why, the excuses kissinger have given for the bombing campaign that caused enormous damage, including bring to power the most extremist cadre within the rouge and leading to the genocides, it was to eliminate safe havens. it was an act of self-defense. this is now taken as a common practice, basically fundamentally what the entire u.s. war on terror is authorized to do, to go into any country and drone and bomb and conduct your operations -- some we know

about and some we don't. but as a matter of cost. we don't do it in secret. so kissinger's trajectory from cambodia, from the architect of the secret campaign to obama country united states was not at war with, to the stately art we are now covered by national security state, is what i think is most instructive and most important about him other than describing him as a war criminal -- which he is. juan: greg, why do you think he remains such a significant figure? as you mentioned, he escaped all of the scandal of the nixon years and went on to be a highly influential figure, not only in the actual political world, but obviously in the media as well. he was always referred to him as

by the corporate press as a revered figure in american foreign policy and national security. >> the press loved him. he was good at playing the press. he was very good at weathering watergate. his fingers were all over -- he basically pushed nixon to set up the plumbers because he was obsessed that daniel ellsberg who had released the pentagon papers had information about cambodia. cambodia threads through all of this. kissinger was instrumental in pushing nixon to set up the covert operation. he wanted to basically take down ellsberg. kissinger survived that basically because he wasn't -- he did not seem like the thugs nixon had around him. and the press really kind of

fell for the gravitas he projected. there were looking for someone they could trust and hang something on and still have faith in the national -- in the institution of the presidency, the executive branch. kissinger was very attuned to this. he played people like ted koppel very well. what is interesting about kissinger, we know about his eight years in office. he was national security director and secretary of state under nixon and ford for a full eight years. secretary of state for the last couple of those years. we have documents -- kissinger himself has declassified, given his archive. but what happened after, when he becomes a kind of sage ponded,

bipartisan ponded that bill clinton really militates -- rehabilitates kissinger by giving him certain seriousness, rehabilitates them for the democratic party. then kissinger associates. he is out of office now for, what, 50 years and during that time, kissinger associates has been a kind of premier concierge service for the global elite. it has brokered the privatization of national industries in latin america and eastern europe, russia. he is a key player in all of these movements. we have no information about any of that. it is arguably more consequential in some ways. maybe not. i guess the actual war crimes were what he was -- but there is

this black hole of his role as a consultant to the global elite during this very consequential moment in which an enormous amount of wealth transferred from the bottom to the top. kissinger was deeply involved. he helped broker that. he told clinton that clinton had political capital to do only one or two things his first year. you can either pass the national health program or push for nafta. he advised him to push for nafta and clinton did and we got nafta. which i think has a lot about the post-cold war trajectory of the united states and how we got -- join amy: i want to go quickly to the 2016 democratic presidential debate in milwaukee when senator bernie sanders criticized his opponent hillary clinton's relationship

with her fellow former secretary of state henry kissinger and cited kissinger's role in cambodia. >> in her book in the last debate, she talked about getting the approval, the support of the mentoring of henry kissinger. i find it rather amazing because i happen to believe that henry kissinger was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the modern history of this country. i am proud to say that henry kissinger is not my friend. i will not take advice from in re kissinger. in fact, kissinger's actions in cambodia when united states on that country, created the instability for the comment to coming that butchered some 3 million innocent people, one of the worst genocides in history of the world.

count me in as somebody who will not be listening to henry kissinger. amy: bernie sanders versus presidential candidate hillary clinton. then you have the late celebrity chef anthony bourdain who once said -- "once you've been to cambodia, you'll never stop wanting to beat henry kissinger to death with your bare hands. you will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with charlie rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. witness what henry did in cambodia -- the fruits of his genius for statesmanship -- and you will never understand why he's not sitting in the dock at the hague next to milosevic." those were the words of anthony bourdain. i want to get your comment on

this, greg, and then nick turse. >> again, cambodia, the centrality of cambodia in this transitional prevent of u.s. national security state and its importance, the human damage and because of pain and suffering as overwhelming to think about. but more stepping back and thinking about its role in the kind of trajectory of u.s. power , one thing we did not talk about is kissinger's role in 1960 eight. "the new york times" just read an article more or less confirming reagan's role in the october surprise regarding the iranian hostages. but kissinger in the 1950's and 1960's was a rocking republican. he was shocked when nixon got

the nomination in 1968. he thought his political career was over. but then he reached out to the nixon campaign and said, i have contacts in the johnson campaign and i can let you know what is going on with the peace talks in paris that we hoping to wind down the war in might have given humphrey that presidency. nixon passed on information -- kissinger pass on information. once he was appointed, was awarded with that by being appointed national security advisor and then once he came into office, he had to for got away to restart the peace talks. nixon promised to end the war. howdy restart them? well, one of the reasons why you

started bombing cambodia became obsessed was he was trying to kind of project a certain kind of madman theory to the north vietnamese that the nixon administration was so crazy that would start bombing cambodia and maybe this would bring them back to the negotiating tables stuff of course it did not and the war dragged on for another five years for no reason. it could've ended in 1968. it could have -- millions of lives were lost, vid enemies, tens of thousands. -- vietnamese, tens of thousands. all as a result of the moment, the first of october surprise 1968. cambodia playing a central role. amy: we just have a minute and nick turse we want to give the last word after this massive investigation you have done and documents you have uncovered and people's voices that have not been heard before. >> i want to bring it back to the anthony bourdain quote and just offer something a chronicle

from the u.s. records, americans shot of a village with helicopters using machine-gun fire rockets and then sell vietnamese forces and americans began looting. american officers stole a motorbike. other americans noticed there was a young cambodian girl, maybe five years old, was shot and bleeding lying on the ground. they wanted to take her for medical care but the officer who dragged the motorbike on board said, negative. they were weighted down by the bike and had no room. they left this girl there to die. this happened after henry kissinger gave that order. to anything that flies and moves. this was henry kissinger's legacy. this is what anthony bourdain was talking about. amy: intercept reporter nick turse, we will let your four-part series including "blood on his hands: survivors of kissinger's secret war in cambodia reveal

unreported mass killings." we want to thank you university professor greg grandin, author of the book "kissinger's shadow" and we will into your new article. [captioning made possible by democr

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