troops. didn't really get it right and when. i started out as a very conservative republican like every person in my army community and upstate new york in the fifty's. my father was a member of the john birch society he was very opposed to the new deal labor unions

catholics jews and. he was actually not that unusual and my dad for those attitudes to prevail. because i was a good athlete good in school and good in my church and a good boy scout of my time i was really proud of. in one thousand sixty-six as the u.s. military began ramping up its forces in vietnam brian wilson was drafted. i enlisted in the air force for a four year program to go into the army as an induction. and then i got my orders to become an air force sure ranger officer commanding a unit of forty men. and so soon i fought. i saw in vietnam

my duty was to go and assess the success or failure bombing missions. and in one week. we went visited five targets in. all the targets were inhabited fishing and. second. i defended. fishing. these villages were bombed at two hundred fifty to three hundred feet five hundred pound bomb suspension shop to take off. so everybody needs filesystems either dead or just about dead and they were all blocked it is burned from them if. i watch as far as i could walk before the bodies were show think they

could walk any further and the found my feet. and i saw a young bean means woman holding three children in her arms her eyes are opened her eyes are just staring up at i was looking at my sister. when i looked into his eyes and it was all moderated or was a lie and i suspect that everything i had ever been taught was a lie. my life completely radically changed. i do not know why i am here. i was in somebody else's village nine thousand miles from my farming village in upstate new york. oh are they doing there. are we doing there. i want to for more religious that week. the same scene then i realized i don't need

to do this if these are now pct. these are mothers. these are small children. and if you elderly. they were killing villagers in villages. and calling in receipt please please please please said i was on the wrong side of. this is how could this be a good ploy i'm on the wrong sorry i. validate dorrian honor society student council. all conference athlete. did everything right. and was all wrong. why must this nation. has and its interest and its

power. for the sake of a people so far away. i think because we must fight. if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its all play. even training regimes believe all these years that there are enemies out there. keep it charged to protect ourself from the end and realize we were the enemy. during bryant's four years in the air force the vietnam conflict think recently polarized the american public. on the lord and his commanders about atrocities he had witnessed his reports were ignored he emerged from the military and vietnam where the for. found.

to go to a country that about committing genocide. can still be with our. people . much more two of. the officers treated. people one on the fourth of july like brian run kovac received the bronze star for valor and the purple heart after being wounded leading an attack in vietnam. even though i was paralyzed. in many ways i see that it was a blessing in disguise i had been able to recognize. that peace is so much

more important in war. and compassion respecting the lives of each and every human being how many more bombs are we going to have to drop how many more people are going to have to die we've got a profoundly changed. turn in my branch barack took work on art i locked my leg and yet now i'm not totally opposed this war or carrying on over there i'm struck by what they've got going on in l.a. stop telling your brothers they're the traitors stop. states wage its own official war for nearly a decade. one nine hundred seventy one former military analyst daniel ellsberg released the pentagon. the start of. the course of. the. i came back from vietnam

understanding that there was going to be no kind of success and nothing's going to bloody steal. vietnam and felt the wish to get out of concealment of this information for twenty five years has now led to the deaths of fifty thousand americans and several hundred thousand vietnamese in the last few years a couple of late in over twenty years of this involvement. and i think fifty the odds have been weighted in favor of secrecy the classified department of defense files revealed that since one thousand nine hundred forty five presidents truman eisenhower kennedy and johnson had misled congress and the public about unconstitutional military actions those beginning in the one nine hundred sixty s. included secret raids on cambodia laos and north vietnam richard nixon i know is to sit in much the same way with continuing the war while presenting to the public that he was on the process of getting out and we speak of america's priorities the

first priority must always be peace for america and the word. revelation of the secret pentagon documents for street protests and anger spread across the country decorated war heroes and civilians marched together protesting the unconstitutional undeclared war ask the united states has been at war under every president since nine hundred forty one. ever since the end of world war two us presidents have authorized the illegal and unconstitutional wars of aggression. according to the us constitution only congress can declare war but presidents have consistently found ways to wage war without congressional approval. between one nine hundred fifty and two thousand the us government was overthrown sixty democratically elected governments dropped bombs on over thirty nations. and

attempted assassinations of over sixty four in the drivers. millions die in these undeclared wars. to kids years old and i was looking at. pictures in a book. i said to myself what a crazy way try to solve it. and as the years have gone by. even more bent. that seven year old. fear of communism remained at fever pitch in the early one nine hundred eighty s. . common president reagan turned his focus to the resource rich countries of central and south america central america do directly affect the security and it

will be. and central america is much closer to the united states than many of the trouble spots the concerns we knew. in the country. in the system because for one hundred years two hundred years of those who lived through dollars. for every dollar we've invested so it's been true to the source oh then go for the. for forty years the united states received the first choice on the ninety percent of nicaraguan exports in return for the u.s. government supported the dictatorship of the some most of dynasty the family used land confiscation and political repression to rule over the nicaraguan people. in one thousand nine hundred seventy nine the samosa as were driven out after a long war waged. by the popular sandinista party led by daniel ortega.

one nine hundred eighty two in an attempt to thwart president reagan's plans to overthrow the nicaraguan government the congress passed the boland amendment which prohibited u.s. military aid to the contras nineteen eighty-four daniel ortega was elected democratically the government implemented new social services for providing free education health care and land reform. reagan vend used ortega's socialist policies and economic aid received from the soviet union to start a covert war using the national security council the administration sent secret to aid to the mercenary soldiers known as the contras. despite the passage of the boland amendment the arming and support of the contras became the most ambitious paramilitary and political actions mounted by the cia since

vietnam. ortega's knew sandinista government turned to the american peace activists for help and. we begin with the request of the no or tell us what to bring people down she says look i don't care who you bring don't bring down republicans democrats but we want people to know the to your country is devastating our country. in a world of big partisan movies a lot and conspiracy it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that made stream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smarter we need to stop slamming the door on the path and shouting past each other it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now

for watching closely watching the hawks. i got a place called camp sundown camp for people that can't love the site and they're like so vampire camp this is like a safe house i guess they don't have to talk about what they go through but that's because we understand her daughter katie was diagnosed with a very rare sun sensitive condition if i get sunburned i heal she does or she'll patients when they have problems with the walk to talk to her son the brains that are actually shrinking inside the skull gets weaker in the branston small. the pain is indescribable it's feels like a really really bad chemical burn but it goes through your skin in your muscles all the way down to the bone and there's no relief. so we're just not sure this is but just over.

join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to us of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. i knew that other u.s. americans were going to they're going to i went out and i'm serving in a war zone and we literally sent thousands of people to see the war unit go out where they would come home wouldn't speak in their churches right up the and so on reagan was forced to admit that the u.s. was actively working to overthrow ortega's democratically elected government. to gain political support to the president presented the contras as a people's democratic movement as a condition of our aid i would insist on civilian control over all military forces

but no human rights abuses are tolerated that any financial corruption to be rooted out that american aid go only to those committed to democratic groups is. what i want to nag and i when i can name six i was a johnny come lately. within the first week the contras these u.s. funded terrorists attacked three charming whopper tears east of west early and killed eleven eleven accomplice chinos. i saw five of those compazine i was coming in on a horse drawn wagons to us to the rest of the cemetery and open caskets and horse drawn wagons. the main contra targets of consistently been civilian homes buses or trucks which has helped destroy any public support they may have had. eight civilians were killed in this truck when ambushed by culture machine guns the senate needs to government says that in the past six years over ten thousand

civilians have been wounded kidnapped or killed by the country. the contras also known as the nicaraguan democratic force maintained affronted by a civilian adult. would earlier work as the cia informed of the type of war we fight those skills. procedures. i discovered really for the first time my fish really understood the pattern. which was to destroy people power movements and i was one of the people i'm not one of the power it is a fact that the policies of the united states of america are you know illegal and will need to invest a lot. in fundamental standards of decency is understood by people all over the world and i wanted to demonstrate mine a solitary with the people and my being men opposition to the power coming out of

my own country. oh. walking against fear against your. own things. because its main dangers player countries. yes their country is in one thousand eighty six and one nine hundred eighty seven brian m. and other veterans participated in the past more veteran peace action teams. teams walked through nicaragua's war torn diligence gathering proof of human rights violations by the u.s. back home to some. soul who do not need to stay to a school. but noting abstract he's still who made his station.

in central america. anything is going to happen to you it was going to be responsible for the. well there's only one country that's or you know it's united states. they're funding. terrorists and so i think the terrorists from the states are responsible in the course of. the truth. to.

the. american people.

the truth. is right. me because. i was depressed because your leadership. stood up to do it. and talk to me. and. we both were. totally opposed to the

war he talked to me about. charlie. was planning to do a fast. death. and opposition to us back contra. before i did the fast i decided that a significant. could be. you know those very prestigious medal of honor and in protest of u.s. foreign policy and central america. the most powerful statement that i felt that i could make outside of actually some way give you know your life well then following up on. the fast bryan and.

fast need to have strategic objectives. brian was really determined that the objective of this fast was to change u.s. foreign policy toward nicaragua. and people. in washington as many did to support the. steps of the capitol. i remember the inspirational. charles brian. charge. they were doing something that was born. we were talking about nicaragua and what we were doing here but it was bigger than. south central america america and of course himself. and what it meant to those on the receiving. end how this was all being carried out with our expert.

president last week. not. just. as a fast thirty five and forty days and that's approaching the time when people began dying from fast like this and although they were being monitored they were getting weaker and weaker and we were quite alarmed they were usually you might. think. the question can come up relative to fasting well is. when life could take your

own life. i can do my own life if i want to why not this my life for a better fast. approaches. which led to the. terrorist suspects. identified. five hundred solitary actions around states that were acting in concert with our. it was called conspiracy conspiracy to change us. organizing. and then enter it into actions were. we were it is will fast and. the move to classify the veterans fast as terrorism triggered a reaction from an unlikely source the f.b.i.

agent assigned to investigate them twenty two year bureau veteran jack ryan. i was in charge of investigating for the f.b.i. . foreign counterintelligence and i get a lead that says investigate. for fasters there fasting on the steps of the capitol jack ryan reviewed the veterans fast for life case files and also those of other u.s. nationwide solidarity groups in the investigation wanted to find out who was this group veterans fast for a life and they were called terrorists under the sabotage statutes. ryan concluded that the fasters were nonviolent and refused to investigate further his superiors put him under review the bureau just came down on me when i likened it to killing a flea with a shotgun yet i was fired ten months shy of getting

a pension but they came down big. to those of you who voted for aid i want to say i have yet to receive an explanation that speaks from a place other than beer bordering on a paranoia reminiscent of the. the idea that we were terrorists and. that it. was it is ridiculous. and a terrorist has no regard for human life whatsoever in the crash like this i don't see how they can possibly be construed as hurting someone else. it's ukraine versus russia again a minor maritime incident on the current strait is said to be anything between a major international crisis to a cheap campaign trick as ukraine's interests in election cycle take your pick but one thing is for sure russia is deemed aggressive by the west even when defending

its sovereignty. and when you know what i think. we're buddy. or i think that's i mean yes i knew she'd been to that community yeah. whom he could feel that he had a ticking dad. who made the move to follow the man that he. had i.

mean i didn't find. even even the slightest and i never thought. and i've been doing this instance the late ninety's there is no doubt about the transformation of the city center and increasingly. this. is an incredible achievement it's one that's a very expensive it's human mosco has become at least in the sense a muumuu is it a livable place to use this kind of job and ultimately the long time effects of this are going to bourbon will take will take a long time to be measured because i really just beginning. what politicians do. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected . so when you want to be president and should. somehow want to.

have to do like the press this is like a hopeful tree in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the water out . there should. the. u.s. senate says demand an end to military support for saudi arabia in a long running war in yemen. all sidelining this morning the russian president called sunday's maritime clash between russian and ukrainian vessels nothing but provocation describing anti mosco sentiment as a brand to sell ahead of ukraine's general election next year but also to come. meet ph test.