danny, welcome to going under ground before we get to this monumental history of the united states. i mean, it's up there with how it's in, arguably, and how you manage to teach this to us army soldiers at west point, which will get hundreds. amazing, the whole idea of it, you will take, obviously on us troops fleeing in the dead of night, from afghanistan. will you fought for the u. s. army? well, i think it's, it's a tragedy for the young people, but it's been an ongoing tragedy in general that there's been 40 years of war. i think the american troops leaving the dead of night is a fitting way for the imperial us sort of forces to go this war. it's been over for 10 years or longer when you know, when i fought there in 201112 and was the height of the u. s. troop presence and we barely controlled anything but the ground we stood on. i'm for the withdrawal. i don't think that america can meaningfully influence the outcomes in afghanistan and

the whole thing is a tragedy. but more so for the people who are janice, then i support the withdrawal. but we're, we're going out with our tail between our legs, which is surprising to people who weren't paying attention. i think so, the fact that the united states really has really is not achieved anything in afghanistan. and things are worse essentially than, than we found it or, or then we found that in february 2002 in combat operations were declared over. yeah, i mean, in this country, thousands of british troops wounded hundreds of thousands of afghans. obviously the army doesn't count. the us over u. k. hope he doesn't get african civilians. i mean use the word imperial. there. people are going to wonder when you fall in iraq, afghanistan, lots of this book. you taught to people who fight for the united states and you use the word imperial. that is not the rhetoric we hear from the hillary clinton's of this world. and the liberal interventionists at all. it's trying to actually net

countries govern themselves is the whole idea, right? i mean, the polite liberals and the polite imperialist says like, call them or the light intervention is they. they always come up with rhetoric to justify these interventions. but 11 looks at the practical end of it and for better or worse my life, really, my adult life was spent at the practical point, the end of the sphere. it looked a lot like invasion, occupation, and sort of, you know, a brand of imperialism. no one likes the word empire in the united states. in fact, we're really proud. we just celebrated the fact, you know, we're, we were ostensibly founded in opposition to the greatest empire in the world. you know, a dallas king, george. we don't like empire, but one of the things are in the book and one of the things that i felt experientially that i had seen with my own eyes, was that the united states was ever always and continues to be an empire. just

maybe not of the maritime late 1900 century european sword. but there's been all kinds of empires in history and currently were an empire of bases and economics and expeditionary interventions. and any mythology needs a, a found a founding myth, origin myth. you go through a couple of them. just tell me about why, why we don't hear about jamestown. it's a peculiar thing. origin miss you would think would start at the beginning. the 1st permanent, you know, british settlement is jamestown. 16 o 7, but that's not what we really celebrate in the united states. that's not our origin . the origin meant this thanksgiving. it's pilgrims, it's buckles on black. has it's this notion that the united states was founded as a haven for, you know, religious, you know, right?

you know, the right to practice religion. that's interesting that we choose that. of course, it's a myth. massachusetts was actually a very sort of fundamentalist religious state. i mean, it was, there was really very little difference between the government and the church. you wouldn't want to live among these people, frankly. i mean, there, they bear a lot in resemblance to, you know, life in pure in boston in life and re on weren't completely different, right. we just don't like to think of it that way. but i think the reason we don't talk about jamestown is there's a few. well, 1st of all, that's where the slaves come. just the few years after the british colonies get there, but also the motives, it's really hard to like justify those motors if you're even remotely honest about it, which is that a bunch of risk the crass did too many chiefs didn't bring any farmers in bringing in people who do actual work a form, a corporate venture, right?

like venture capitalism. go to virginia, looking for gold and resources and northwest passage, maybe. and to kind of like, you know, challenge the spanish and they make terrible decisions. and they, you know, set up a settlement in a malarial swamp and almost all of them die. and one guy eats his wife the 1st winter because they're starving. and the whole thing is a mass. and it's sort of a capitalist enterprise and extract extract $31.00. and so i don't think that that coheres with our origin met. but in many ways it's just the stage for what is the common american history. maybe more so than boston and plumbing. rock and all that, and you see parallels between i to say, ash and this puritan, true origin. well, they use a lot of the same language. i mean, in the scale of killing someone say isn't the same, but what is it not? i mean, we're talking about folks who in the mystic massacre, you know, surround

a wooden village in, in what's now connecticut. right. where julia roberts movie took place, right? mystic pizza and you know, they burn alive day and that, and shoot taking no quarter women, children, old people, most of the warriors i've kind of gotten away. this is just one incident. and the language that they use, i mean ronald reagan and every politician says, right, whether it's hillary glenn or, or brock obama. they love this city on a hill speech. it's lashawn winthrop, right? us, you know, on the boat off shore. he says, we shall be as a city upon a hill. well, no one ever mentions what he says after that in the speech. he basically says that we're a new israel and that with the strength that i'm paraphrasing with the strength of god behind us, we should be able to smote 10 of our enemies for each man. this is a subtler colonial enterprise to not necessarily civilize the heathen, but probably to exterminate and the language of creating they wanted to create

a christian power fate in a new land. i mean this is, this is not very different language. i mean, if i'm being purposely provocative and there are differences, but i think if we don't look at the parallels, we're not looking at ourselves. and if we don't look at ourselves, we're never really going to be able to make the progress to this. you know, you know, aspirational republic of ours. no one in the us had such a great time finding. what would become al guy there, there would be me. and now, so nice or the taliban. i don't know. but when you are saying this at west point, to military recruits and office of material wanted their faces even show what expressions do they show when you talk like that to them? well, it depends on the students. i would say that overall, it would probably surprise folders to know how many people so many my students were or to, you know, this, this actual history means factual. it was a, making anything up. but, you know, obviously anyone puts a slant on, it has a certain kind of analysis they're coming from. mine was definitely on the radical

and, but i wasn't the only instructor. they are the only officer they're teaching that way. my boss was the students were a little more amenable than you to with and you might think one of the reasons is because i was just out of afghanistan and most of my fellow officers teaching there were just out of iraq or afghanistan and usually multiple tours they look up to you, there's a certain rank structure, so even if you're making them uncomfortable, they're a little less likely to challenge. the 2nd one is if you teach well and you and you sort of demonstrate that you care for the students, they may start to listen after a while. in the beginning of the semester, there was a lot of confusion. and throughout the semester, this is very demonstrative of the demographics of america regional. it's a huge country. it's really many countries in many ways, like 7 nations, according to one book goals really. but the, the southern cadets that gets from the deep south, specially they could have some taxes and canceled the mountain west, were much more skeptical of their narrative and gave a little more push back,

especially on certain lessons the alamo, the civil war, the vietnam war. these were the touchstones that they pushed back most thought, which i think it's kind of illustrative of what still resonates with americans. yeah, and i should just say before anyone thinks his job usa mashing british history and the history i was taught about britain degree. all countries have to create a kind of mythology, you mentioned vietnam in the book. you claim that nixon use the initial circumstances that exacerbate the attention in vietnam to be elected. oh, absolutely. you know, nixon does a few things to get elected. first of all, he plays on the culture wars. he's sort of place to this what he calls the silent majority, the white backlash against the civil rights movement, the white working class backlash against what was perceived as a privileged college kid, anti war movement. even though that's a bit of a mythology too, and also, you know, he literally sense kissinger,

right. one of the great villains of american history that, you know, hillary clinton looks up to right is fascinating. more a stronger forest johnson over here we'll talk as well. of course, horsberg brace, the mental kissinger, the, the murderer punches thousands, but, you know, kissinger is sent to spike. the piece talks basically that, you know, johnson's kind of working on and that are ongoing because he tells them essentially, you know, tell the south vietnamese leadership. don't make a deal, don't agree, anything because a tougher president is coming in and you'll get a better deal with us. i mean, it's treason and a lot of ways. i mean, this guy isn't even president yet. and look, this is, this was business as usual. i mean, it was an indicator of what was to come for next and obviously with this expansion of corrupt, federal and executive power. but absolutely does that mean the vietnam war. ready were still fighting the vietnam war in american politics today, largely. ok. i mean,

obviously some people they make some progressive on time elements of welfare to a fantasy. yes. i mean, who is this vocal minority in d. c. a policy makers. that if you advance the years after $911.00 made policies that we now see the results of in, in libya and in syria canister in iraq. you know, i think it's, there's 2 strands stewart to bipartisan strands. there's the, like the neo imperial neoconservatives, who believed that the is for the executive branch. these are the rumsfeld's, the cheney, the wall forces. these are idealogues, more so than bush himself, who believe that the executive branch should be able to basically wage war and a certain american hedge many unilateral. and that after vietnam, congress dot too powerful the american people got too hesitant about using force. this is all vietnam syndrome, and that's the problem if you unshackled the presidency and do what needs to be

done, the re all policy crowd, then you know, then will, when course they were wrong. but then there's also a little interventionist, which in some ways has been a stronger strands of american sort of imperialism. this is the wilsonian. this is the sort of civilized the world spread democracy and the free market along the way, of course. and that's like the samantha powers and the hillary clinton's into large extent, joe biden, although he's been better on i've got to stand throughout his career. but backing all of this is a professional class of the tanker analysts policy makers awaiting the wings and advise professionally the dc policy makers. and of course, that's all funded along with the politicians, by what eisenhower warned about in his farewell address, which is the war industry, a sprawling military industrial complex that profits from war that profits no one else. not the american soldiers under my commander died for $30000.00

a year and not the people living on $2.00 a day who we, you know, drop our bombs upon. so i think that's really the rule nexus that has proven a formula for forever war major danny session of something that more of the true history of the united states after this break ah, as we were saying shipping, all of our jobs in factories in china was a bad idea, but the american people were okay with it, because although their wages were going down, the stuff they were getting from china via wal mart was cheaper than ever. okay, now the chickens have come on the roof. now, the china labor sink is finished. inflations kicking in real wages are going up, but not as fast as inflation. the

british and american governments have often been accused of destroying lives in their own interest. while you see in this, these techniques is the state devising message to end essentially destroy personality of an individual by scientists means this is how one doctors, theories were allegedly used in psychological warfare against the prisoners deemed a danger to the state. that was the foundation for the method of psychological interrogation, psychological torture, disseminated within the us intelligence community, and worldwide among allies for the next 30 years. and how the victim say they still with the consequences today. the welcome back. i'm still here with retired us army officer major data session was the true history of the united states. i mean, some said that in the

a bit your ease of donald rumsfeld, they were far too kind to him. i mean, what did you make of the? i mean, millions, tens of millions were killed. wounded. are displaced in that. these was all, it was obscene. i mean, the missionaries were largely obscene. it's one thing to dance on somebody's grade . but when that person created countless graves masquerades, i think we need to tell the truth about it. and the truth is don rumsfeld role in american valve, which is highly nefarious, and it was long term like the youngest. then oldest secretary defense, i believe. the 2nd place is the cheapest, stafford gerald ford. he's been fighting to unshackled the presidency as i was mentioning earlier, throughout a whole career. i mean, dick cheney as his protege, not the other way around. people forget that. he represents a strand of american conservatism that when hyper imperialists in the most old

school sense and was sort of on apologize about it. and he was a disaster for us politics for the pentagon and for the world. and his ill should be rejected, horribly and emphatically. but instead in the polite circles where they go to the same schools and cocktail party, country clubs and their kids go to after school programs together at the club. you see as a club, northern virginia is a club. and i think that drives some of the polite, you know, media memory. yeah, i think that class war dimension comes through in, in your history very, very powerfully. but if anyone thinks is all about foreign policy, you say in the book, american imperialism comes home, often, poisoning any hope for meaningful democracy. what do you mean by that? well, james madison had said that prolonged war is the greatest enemy to a republic or democracy. george marshall the 5 star general,

who really was the architect of victory in world war 2. and then later became secretary of state. he said democracy cannot fight a 7 years war. i chuckle, want to hear that now? and i wonder what he would think if we added 13 to that and going the argument is essentially that look, war poisons, things, things are lost, civil liberties are inevitably lost privacy, the surveillance state, the police get militarized when the veteran pipeline comes in. and you know, they're disproportionately represented, and baltimore is treated like baghdad in kansas city is treated like kandahar occupied territory by police one who know counterinsurgency and only counter insurgency. we've seen this in the master balance of americans. the entrapment scandals. everyone says the great thing about war, brown history, there's people like the roosevelt and we need a good war. we need a good water, revitalize our masculinity, and to bring us together. i mean, because we heard that about world war 2, the greatest generation, even in britain,

i imagine as pricing stalls are for that high. but the reality is, and actually that's true sometimes. but the dark side of it is and the stronger side is that things are lost, that it justifies the government grabbing more power that it never gives back. and it gives an excuse to sort of pull away the rights, the liberties that any democracy is built on. and i think that's the blow back of war. and it's multifaceted, and that's why i say, you know, empires and decline behave badly. and empires always come home. this is a historical and philosophically just factual. again, the idea that you are teaching recruits at west point is quite amazing. i mean, the wiki leagues uncovered so many cables that arguably support fees is in the later part of this book. because obviously wiki leaks goes back a number of years decades and julian assigns is being tortured here in london,

according to the united stations. you are safely walking around the streets of the united states. yeah, well i mean, what you say about what west point and teaching it there, i think is important. i mean, i say in the prologue of this book, i was on paper highly regard officer, right? fairly high regarded i had good scores, i done went to west point, any good combat record. so i was a prime candidate to go back and teach, which is pretty selective thing. but what they can't measure is that i just come out of tours. i no longer believed that i spent all my time in those wars and after ending grad school studying the back story to this. and at the point when i got to west point to teach, i felt it would be literally obscene, grotesque not to tell the truth, not to bash america, i tell a lot of great stories about a lot of great americans write about the spirit and the potential of this country, however, if i'm not telling the gods honest truth, warts and all,

to the people who are signed up at 18 years old to fight and die for said country, which is all based on back story and legacy to manage drive is where we're at that would be literally, i thought of c. not everyone on the faculty agreed, but a surprising number did it was not just you believe the was our point lower than, than effective. it was to recent president joe biden, obviously, pulling the troops out, believes that obama maybe did believe because he expanded the number of ways. but donald trump, who you do say without a step with, with the historical background here. although then failed to follow through. you know, from has been of us was a fascinating sort of element in american politics. but even also in my own sort of dissenting background, i started writing articles. and my 1st book while i was on active duty was even under investigation. it was, it was, it was a little bit of drama. but before trump selection, all of my, you know,

hate mail and trolling was from the right. and it was the stuff you to expect. right. you hate america, you're not sure your trade or all of this, right? but after trump selection, if i said even this and i attacked the guy all the time, are criticizing possibly. but if i said anything to say, you know, hey, look, but this rhetoric is, makes sense or this decision on somalia makes sense all almost overnight. my sort of, you know, detractors shifted to the establishment left, right, the mainstream democrat. and i think that that is somewhat instructed to trump for his litany of flaws. was a bit different on foreign policy. and then occasionally whether you followed through or not would say someone comfortable truth, that the polite liberals and the polite lincoln project. conservatives wouldn't say . and that really upset the establishment, which is why they're more angry with him than george w bush was millions of bodies on his hands. i mean only heroes you speak of. i

don't know what the, what a joke about eugene debs. why. why has there been no socialist press joy, although i should say, but any sound is obviously wicky leaks revealed how the n c tried to destroy his candidacy. he's a socialist and nearly became president. so, you know, eugene debs is one of the dissenting heroes that i try to highlight throughout the book. some of them heard of like, you know, john quincy adams and abraham lincoln who were and the mexican american war. but using deb stands out because he was for time candidate for president under the socialist party, gets about a 1000000 votes in 1912 and almost the same in 1920. she runs from federal prison in 1920 in his campaign button. se for president convict, you know, 9372 or whatever. i mean, it was kind of incredible. why though, is that the socialist moment until bernie sanders obviously because bernie sanders, one of his early projects, was

a documentary about eugene debs. which i think is instructed, but why? well, the united states has this hearty frontier culture. this idea, you can always flee west and remake yourself even though that's a bootstrap apology. we have the ethnic and racial devise. the, the hyper capitalist class was always able to divide the working class against itself, either racially or ethnically or regionally. and then there was a sustained effort by the government to suppress socialism here. so i think there's a lot of reasons why we didn't develop a sort of left wing like europe that eugene debs though, is one of those important forgotten figures because he ease fights class warfare. but he does on a democratic ways of democratic socialists. he speaks a lot like a christian actually, even though he's not one, he respects religion and you know, when he's sentenced a federal prison for opposing the draft and giving a speech under sedition act during world war one. i have fooled more than one

person who is a self proclaimed conservative person by quoting what he said to the judge to them and asking who said it. and many times i've been told that sounds like jesus and what he said is your honor. while there is an underclass, i'm in it while there is a criminal element. i am of it. while there is a soul in prison, i am not free. i mean, that's on my wall. that sounds like the sermon on the mount, and i think it's a part of american history, we should remember, but has largely been suppressed. what about the inevitable? is he miss that you talk of in the book? things are just inevitable. washington has a problem with moscow. it's going to happen, as you say, in the book is an ally of moscow at the end of the world war 2. why and britain follows whatever the united states does. and i'm sure you know how can that miss inevitability, right? now, washington has to fight with aging. how can you break that cycle? well, i mean, one of the ways to do it is to treat history with

a degree of strangeness. i mean, that's what i used to tell my students. i mean, one of the things about american history is americans assume they know it, even though they don't know, right where we're criminally bad at knowing our own history. but there's an assumption that we get it. and there's an assumption that there is this determinism in american history. things happens, so they had to have happened. but the reality is that there is the agency of millions of people that determines what happened. and then there's an inherent contingency to history. and i think one of the things the policy makers need to do is not only know their past and like the flaws of it in the midst of it. but also recognize that there are a number of possibilities and options out there that never really get looked at. policymakers put themselves in a certain box before they even start deciding. and they only look at a few options. i mean, co existence and cooperation with china is not on the agenda, not even considered in any real sense on the agenda of either of the 2 major only

political parties, united states that drives the degree of determinism. that then makes historians assume things were inevitable. but they are not. and course, since the only 2 truly existential threat to humanity and the united states are nuclear catastrophe, and climate catastrophe. well, both of those require piece of those require international cooperation and co existence. so actually piece is less naive and more rational than the, you know, the bowl to tell us that war is inevitable and a part of life. and we have to be realists and just find me and briefly there's enough conspiracy about corona virus going around the world. the woman why you say is there is obsession with conspiracy in the u. s. history going from the beginning? well, i think that part of the reason that conspiracies are so popular that we like need

centralized explanations to complex problems. so when something awful happens, when one of these blacks one events happens when, when something no one was expecting, even though they should have been like 911 or the prone of virus or the spanish flu or you name it right. there is a sense that there must be a grand conspiracy. it's actually comforting to people to believe that there are power brokers pulling all of the strengths. a serious read of history though, the end of policy today tells us that aka was razor, is usually the way to go. the simplest explanation is usually the right one. and since we're dealing with human beings and all of their inherent fallibility, i found that incompetence and misunderstanding explains most disasters rather than grand conspiracy. this is not to say there haven't been conspiracies that have proven to be not so conspiratorial but real. but for the most part, i think people want to order the world, and they actually sort of prefer the,

you know, centralized evil. right? the person pulling the strings over the chaos and anarchy of contingency. but that's the world we live in. and it's an inherently grey one, and i thought that people should read about that world major danny session. thank you. and his book, a true history, the united states is out there. that's of the show will be back on monday. 47 years to the day the richard nixon begin. the 1st president of the united states to resign from office is right. not being the 1st or last to break international law until then keep in touch with us through all our social media channels and get in touch to let us know what part of american history you think was deserve to be put under the spotlight. ah ah, i mentioned that i spent more than a month up near lock in arctic and when i got back, i had just totally refrained how great we now have it in modern life. so before i

go up there, it's like i use hot running water every day. never thought about how great that is . dr. carbonate never saw. great. that was, i don't have to go out and walk 5 miles downhill the stream and bring it back up to get my water right. but after alaska, like i had to do all those things. so when i get back into my water, my modern world and i turn on the faucet and hot running water comes out and hits my head was like, oh my god, this is unbelievable. this is the most amazing thing that i've ever that happen to me in my life. the new gold rushes underway, and gunner thousands of ill equipped workers are flocking to the goldfields, hoping to strike it. rich children are torn between gold and education. my family was very poor,

i thought i was doing my best to get back to school, which still it will have the strongest appeal. ah, the russian rhythmic gymnastics, team planes, that's been an injustice to the goldman went to israel. the spot directly dropping the ribbon during the performance and other use a job has to expose abusive conditions of the prison. anything out in is denied telephone lawyer. his wife is branded to move in to vengeance. your presence lawyer is telling me that he can only wanting to speak to them if they have upcoming court deadline where and she's not applying that requirement to any of the others in the fresh capital and rocked by protests for a 4th.