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hello and welcome to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle when the cure is worse than the disease iraq is clearly again falling back into extreme civil strife washington says it wants to help but most iraqis appear wary of any more american assistance then there is afghanistan washington plans to finally leave this year the sad reality for all involved it's the fact that washington may never be able to leap. to cross-talk iraqi afghan legacies i'm joined by my guest richard murphy in new york he is a former u.s. career in boston or to syria and currently an adjunct scholar at the middle east institute also in new york we have don de bar he is an anti-war activist and host of a daily radio program and in washington we cross to peter van buren he is a veteran of the u.s. state department who served in iraq and he's also author of we meant well how i helped lose the battle for the hearts and minds of the iraqi people gentlemen

cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i very much encourage it peter if i go to you first in washington the blame game is raging again who lost iraq who lost afghanistan mr gates is a. memoir of his time in office is really getting a lot of people upset and probably rightfully so from a if you're in the white house and we have to look at what's going on in iraq now what obligation does the not. it's have to reintroduce itself in a greater military way not with troops not boots on the ground but what obligation does the united states have to save the molecule government well the answer is none and not that anything could actually help the united states state spent nine years applying hellfire missiles and drones and automation and attacks of all sorts of kinds and none of that worked it is the definition of of mental illness to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results introducing weapons into iraq at this time from the united states will likely have as much

success this time as it did the last time ok richard if i can go to you in new york i mean this is kind of deja vu all over again do you do the same thing again we try the united states and its western allies try to stabilize a regime that it actually installed in the first place. it was elected. it has behaved incompetently in terms of reaching out as a majority shia government to these sudanese of iraq and it's paying. a heavy price for that it is repeating mistakes that we made ourselves during the occupation but we have an obligation you know so i think so an obligation to. those that don't are for the investments we made and for the far greater number of iraqis that to try to help but and i think the administration with

a very limited military supplies is trying to do something but more importantly trying to counsel the maliki government for god's sakes work for a pluralistic government and reach out to the sunnies ok don i mean i've never seen the molokai government i would describe it as jeffersonian in any sense ok it is it's really terrorizes that the sunni my job a minority there it terrorizes them and it's really quite amazing i mean we have to remind our viewers here there was no al qaeda in iraq before the invasion and now they have i mean come on i mean what is the learning curve here or is there anyone anywhere learning curve at all. well it depends on who's learning what. first of all in terms of obligations by by the united states to the iraqi people if we could we should go back to the fifty's and undo the damage that was done to the developing a society then when we manipulated events so that the bath is ended

up in power because they were afraid communists of socialist would end up in power so you had with the ba'ath this trend over time still the development of a civil society a secular society a material base for you know a decent economy and then the united states decided to involve iraq in its project to undo the iranian revolution and so it had iraq go to war with iran and the iraqi people suffered there again when that was over they weren't satisfied there was a fabrication of babies being murdered in a nursery and a bunch of other things and apparently saddam hussein exerted more influence than washington had ceded to him in you know any kind of a grant occupied kuwait and that became a reason to go to war again then there was the period under clinton with the iraq economy was made to scream in

a way that would drown out the screams of chalet under u.n. day and following that was nine years of outright bombing kicked off with shock and a lot here and it doesn't mention imposed whether they're elected or not on the recondition of occupation through all of it there is an urge like there would be in any society for a expression of national liberation and under wine all of the activity there with all of the distortions of the result of meddling and outright murder by the united states is this spirit seeking sovereignty self-determination dignity it's. going to be. done and done but it's a it's a weird thing the organs off it for a few minutes and some good player has closed when we do for you when you mention some good words there like sovereignty for example peter if i can go to you we heard some very interesting words like sovereignty from don here but the interesting fact is that washington wants to come in and help iraq now this is

a country that's far more aligned with the interests of taran in the middle east here i mean after everything that has been done is that in the interest of the united states i would go get me wrong i'd like to see better relations between to read in washington go ahead. this is an example of the false hoods of the expediency that expediency that the united states maintains in the middle east there's a line in the sand out there drawn by the british that separates syria from western iraq on one side of the line the united states supports sunni fighters because they're fighting shias. in syria but you step over the line into western iraq and anbar province and suddenly the united states is supporting shias who are fighting sunni's the fact that tehran is a longtime patron of maleki with apologies to the ambassador in two thousand and ten the election results favored another candidate it was the united states that sat aside with no credibility whatsoever while toran stepped in and brokered

a deal for moloch to take over the reins of power the expedient processes that the united states continues to try to use in the middle east always always come back to hurt us and while i to support stronger relations with tehran supporting she is versus sunni's on one side of the line and the opposite on the other side of the line certainly will not work out in the long run and certainly does not add up to america's credibility in the greater middle east ok richard in new york which i reflect upon that i mean it's morning different sides in different countries and it's the same conflict it's extremely complex and it doesn't it certainly doesn't look like it's working just to be. clear in understanding peter did you say peter that we were supporting shia in syria. we're supporting a range of fighters in syria that are loosely considered sunni and i certainly understand that we're using these terms sunni and shia very broadly there are

divisions within each very large group but as a shorthand i think it's you know it's quite valuable the idea of. fighting against assad in syria is acceptable fighting against the shias in iraq is unacceptable this kind of where we believe we don't think you're alright alright alright alright i.p.t. major point richard in new york please weigh in go ahead. i don't think we are interested in supporting in syria we're looking for this elusive group the move the moderate sonu of the moderate shia and hoping that they will find a common ground and present a coherent political platform to get down to talks with the leadership of bashar al assad in syria where we're not interested at all in advancing the interests of it'll cut and this is the good news is that apparently

the islamicists. in syria are very divided. and increasingly hostile to all of it. as represented by the islamic state of syria and iraq ok don i'd like to go back to you in new york i meant that the interesting fact here is that you know it respective of what opposition group you want to support or any loose of moderate group that i don't think even exists there anymore it's still the united states and its allies that want to see the end of a secular regime in damascus i mean ad that's adds to the riddle to all of this supporting of different groups in different countries. well that goes back to the beginning of the project in night in the late one nine hundred seventy s. in afghanistan you had a secular marxist government that was being destabilized by people who lived in the country who own the land you know in the in the rural

parts the one land who were looking at having their property handed over to the peasants and you had a secular state in the cities you know because it's a marxist state where the religious types who were not the center of political gravity or of cultural gravity there were being excited by the cia they created the mujahideen groups that were there to firstly stabilize it forced the u.s.s.r. against its wishes by the way they were invited in by the government because they were being the governor was being taken down by these groups but they wanted to punish this was the words of the n s a director at the time as big brzezinski they wanted to punish the u.s.s.r. for vietnam and make them bleed and that's what happened in these groups that's the genesis of these groups and that policy is a policy that's been used throughout the region and elsewhere by the united states consciously or not you know i mean what you know i mean i'm going to jump in here gentlemen we're going to go to

a short break and after that show break we'll continue our discussion on iraq and afghanistan state with our team. new zealand. leg. or leg. that was a new alert animation scripts scare me a little elite. there is breaking news tonight and we are continuing to follow the breaking news lead alexander's family cry tears of the war you and your great things rather that have been regarded in a court of law on the ground alive there's

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politics right. here but. i. believe. welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you that we're discussing iraq and afghanistan. all right gentlemen let's switch gears here let's talk about afghanistan richard what's your reading of what's going on in afghanistan because karzai you know he talks

a lot about the rule of law but it seems like the deal he really wants with the americans about remaining so keeping some troops there it's all about how much he's going to get paid it's all about mr karzai isn't it. well he's. certainly no no virtuous figure when it comes to straightforward government in our sense of the word that there has been a major corruption problem and it's something that the karzai leadership has done nothing about as far as i can tell so. now we are leaving the if the military is going to come out with the exception of a few thousand troops if those arrangements can be worked out and the. has the government or has the structure of afghan society changed because of our intervention during this past decade i think we have done some useful things in

supporting the rights of women. its people last will is that really america's business to intervene in that in that sphere well that's that's an issue that we've stood proudly by over the over the decades. yeah but richard i mean it's afghanistan on the whole on the whole on the whole a better place after all of this or is it more or less the same if not worse in a way. well one mistake we made was not listening to. the soviet predecessors as to what had gone wrong when they sat in afghanistan and i think one of their officials became this the russian ambassador to afghanistan saying hey guys we made a mess of it you better watch out and we didn't watch out we we got in deeper and

deeper now we're getting out are we leaving anything better behind well afghanistan has been the graveyard of imperial adventures over the centuries and i have to say it's a very dubious proposition that we have greatly improved the situation ok peter if i can go to you in washington you know i was in afghanistan last year before last and you know what i'll tell you something the only thing i saw standing in kabul that actually works out beyond a brand new mosque that's in the center of the city is a lot of soviet architects are still standing there i've seen nothing that the americans made except for their their compound for nato ok which i was in and it's vast it's like being in a huge aircraft carrier and you know what you don't feel like you're in kabul which goes back to mr karzai i think he just plays the united states for a fool because he's all talking about his retirement how much money he's going to be able to suck out with his brothers and his family absolutely i know he's buying real estate in dubai i hear ok i mean this is

a guy that's playing the west i mean like a fool go ahead i hear this echo in washington and keep saying vietnam vietnam the united states has this false view of the world as a chess sport where we can move pieces around and give them funny names our man in. our good sunni's in here are bad she is over there and that we can move these pieces around the chess board and cost the. to happen karzai is a perfect example the last so-called election that put him into power was deeply contested the united states allowed that to go through karzai slats says he takes our money but we seem to keep giving him our money in hopes that maybe something different will happen afghanistan i'm afraid will end up the same as iraq the same as vietnam

a place where we've expended thirteen years worth of human lives of american afghan a trillion of dollars that are desperately needed here in the united states and the result will be a society as chaotic as what was there before our arrival if not more sympathetic to its neighbors all against the interests of the united states it's very difficult to say anything positive about the situation it's a very cynical view to claim that anything good has really been done particularly in comparison to the costs ok don if i go back to you in new york i mean what is the united states get out of making some kind of deal with karzai i mean you know you can call it cut and run but just leave i mean you know you have to a doctors are supposed to help you know if they're not supposed to make things worse and it seems to me and night and i would eyewitness that i saw it myself all i saw was a country that was under siege it was all about three things security security and security. if the us wasn't using afghanistan as

a geo political pawn in the late seventy's and through a good part of the eighty's probably there would be a very healthy economy a secular state and quite a few people still alive and families still intact that are gone that were murdered over the last thirty years essentially u.s. arms makers have made lots of money their. people have been signing contracts to do on oil pipelines and of course heroin has been flowing from afghanistan since the u.s. troops went back there at the beginning you know shortly after two thousand and one and that's an interesting thing to look at by the way because you know peter mentioned vietnam during the vietnam war there was heroin all over the streets in the united states during the central american wars the contra war and all of that there was cocaine all over the united states' streets and now again this heroin all

over the streets and so there is there was also a war being conducted against the american people that's taken place partly you know with the same troops that we're using to conduct war on behalf of whatever u.s. interests are there for the last one i want to make is this the real game that gets played is that whatever state structures are or is to mentalities of sovereignty and self-determination exist in each of these places if the u.s. goes into afghanistan iraq syria libya wherever the goal seems to be because what happens is they destroy those they leave the populace in chaos the infrastructure in shambles and whatever the the resources are that they want they managed to get those out just fine and you have to have a hard time believing that this is all an accident it's a very successful. project that they've been on and it's

a pretty bright one all right richard please jump in in new york i mean i guess when we're done with saying we're getting legacies giving legacies go ahead richard . well let's not forget that the reason we went in in the first place was to get hold of. al qaida leadership to destroy that as a movement now we missed on both accounts but we have succeeded in d.c. and we are far from true. the the affiliates around there around in africa they're around in the middle east in syria etc but to the goal was to get rid of them and we could not convince that then taliban authorities to hand them over that was against their they saw as against their interests and their tradition record. richard don't you think now the united states if it wants a semblance of a anything that we can even agree with on the word normality should the united states the negotiate with the taliban directly to have an exit where the country

still saw it all together go ahead i think i think that's coming in fact karzai has been very irritated and paranoid if you will about reports that have been some efforts to advance a better understanding between washington and the taliban now that's got to come ok peter in washington i'm calling this program legacies here what is the legacy of american occupation in an invasion of these countries you know twelve years on now for both it and in context of what's going on in the middle east today. it's a very sad legacy it's very very difficult to point to anything even remotely positive that came out of this from any perspective from a humanitarian perspective it's a disaster the number of people on all sides that have been killed in both places certainly from the perspective of draining the american economy this is been a tremendous mess and has crippled us but more importantly even if you take the

strictest genial political interpretation the economy be damned the loss of human life began we haven't even gotten anything positive out of that to continue the same strategy that failed so successfully in iraq afghanistan into imported into libya watch that descend into chaos to imported into syria watch that descend into chaos you take a look around the middle east in your very very hard put to pick out a country or an area where things are even marginally better than they were on september tenth two thousand and one it's time to stop it's time to reassess what america's interests in the middle east actually are and that's a good argument of its own and then try to figure out a new strategy that may support or advance those interests look there's there's old story about the difference between a colony american policy in the middle east and the answer is after thirteen years

you stop milking the col ok don in light of what robert gates has written here i mean are you surprised about the blame game because it seems to have nothing to do with the people on the ground in afghanistan and iraq now it's people in washington trying to save their reputation and legacy go ahead. yeah absolutely it's that and it's also politicking for the congressional elections this year and positioning for twenty sixteen. i think really what's important is to look at what actual american policy is and what its implications are for the people of the wreck to do we have a pretty good idea how things have turned out in afghanistan and in iraq and in pockets stunned by the way that got dragged in libya how things are going in syria egypt etc ok but if you take a walk actually that whole program has been spreading with africa across the african continent we see the same dynamics taking place in maybe

a half dozen african countries already people are being murdered there's discord there's sectionalism and there's all kinds of fighting around that with the huge resources that exist right gentlemen i have to chime in here i guess we could make another program called what's the learning curve and many thanks to my guests today in washington and in new york and thanks to our viewers for watching us scenic some remember.

that you know the price is the only industry specifically mentioned in the constitution and. that's because a free and open press is critical to our democracy. in fact the single biggest threat facing our nation today is the corporate takeover of our government and i'm cynical we've been hijacked lying. and full of transnational corporations that will profit by destroying what our founding fathers one school class i'm job market and on this show we were to feel the big picture of what's actually going on while we go beyond identifying the problem for trucks rational debate and real discussion critical issues facing america five go ready to join the movement then walk a little bit hard. drugs some of the sixteen percent means you imports came from illegal fishing and. the

european union is ironically taking fish from some of the poorest nations on earth so this is a very serious and very urgent problem that needs immediate international action. coupons but they enter our territorial waters and they fish they load the fish on to the ships and leave for europe. to day illegal fishing just taking the bread out of our mouths. i got a quote for you. it's pretty tough. if they were it's about story. let's give this guy like you would smear about guys stead of working for the people both issues the mainstream media are working for each other right on stage and a lot. of it rather.

we're. how do you people have a martin and this is breaking the set so it's no secret that the u.s. military has over five thousand nuclear warheads enough to eliminate most life on earth but it may surprise you how much it costs just to maintain use of weapons all new study from the center for nonproliferation studies just concluded that of the course of the next thirty years the u.s. will spend nearly one trillion dollars to either keep these weapons operational or modernize them because you would know the cold war never really ended and if there's one thing we need to be spending billions of dollars on it's in the mass killing machines so this country continues to lag.