a subject on which i can relax. but to your question, i was there in the beginning. i was there when people like colon pals, lawyer himself a former deputy secretary of defense, william howard taft, the 4th, a very famous name and american politics objected to the war instrument, pointing out that we had used law enforcement as our principal counter terrorist methodology for years only one exception, really, ronald reagan's raid on libya in april of 1986, which didn't last very long. and there was a lot of sense to that reality politics sense to using law enforcement to continue to use it. the moment we selected the war instrument, we elevated al qaeda and it's why to warrior status. we even had extraordinary difficulty coming up with a term to describe them. so the geneva conventions and other things wouldn't apply to them. we lost and we understandably last. i think because president bush

himself told a group of, of angelica was visiting the white house. my rage is up. please help me, help me restraining my rage. i think that was the most telling comment. the then young neal fight inexperienced president made. it was all about revenge and secondarily about preventing a 2nd attack. and we thought if we went after the head of the snake, we would prevent a 2nd attack better. but it was an informed decision to decide to use military power. we now are bathed in the madison county and warning of when you give the executive unlimited more powers, you are on a dangerous track, a very dangerous track, and we're paying for it. and i've got it down to just one of the debts we owe. but your boss because you are chief of staff to the safety of state and po,

self knowledgeable but cautious general. who was he was advocating more instrumental or was he's saying there might be other ways to to, to bring us some of the lads to book we really wanted to explore as far as possible, getting the taliban, omar and others in the counsel. we wanted to explore that to the ultimate as we did want to explore inspectors back into iraq later in 2002 and 3. and the administration completely blew that out of the water even as go about got a 15 vote in the un security council to reinforce that. dick cheney was running the government at that time with regard to national security and foreign policy. so yes, we had some objections. once we knew and understood the political circumstances, let's face it. the administration had no mandate, no political mandate. it had demand a to the u. s. supreme court. there was

a lot of fear in those opening days in the administration that the american people would throw us out for the mistake that we just made a tremendous mistake, the causal eyes. so that trepidation lasted only a short time. as soon as bush went to new york stood on that pile and said, and those who did this will hear from us very soon, because that one, the american people's following, he got 90 percent on the bowls, then he realized our effective call ro, his political advisor, realize i, affective, that stance was and that it could, as he said at the time, a short bush of a 2nd permit office. if he just played the global war on terror correctly. i overheard call roving the indian treaty room at the old executive office building eyes, and our billing now say to is henchmen ken mehlman. if we exploit this right, we can be in power for a long time. that was the political incentive. so war had to be the answer and in power. finally realize that plus, dick cheney told him,

essentially putting his finger in his chest. you aren't the chairman anymore, so don't be advising all war. you advise on diplomacy, not war. so, and i want to say if you take other things that happened them, incoming administration as it was like the chinese biplane crisis of, of april 2001 where the view of colin powell and perhaps george senior would be this one. sure. this is a, i don't show you the hand of caution of negotiation of agreement prevailed was 911 and the traumatic shock to america the policy into the hands of dick cheney and the nea cardinal. the for, for the general description is that was the significant thing. that's an excellent point. i've said a number of times that i think president bush was on colon side with regard to the april 10th, 2001 shoot down or not shoot down, but collusion of the p 3 and the chinese f. a fighter playing the crisis. he was on

power side because he understood the importance of china to walmart. that's just a, you know, of sort of general comment, simplistic as it is, but it says, hey, without china, we want to have a very good domestic economy. so bush knew that. so he sided with in that instance rochelle and cheney wanted a war at best. they wanted a cold war. they wanted to open relations with taiwan and a significant way and tried to do so. so you got a good point later on though powell has lost some of his ability to influence the president. not only because it's not china issue, it's something else. but also because rove and cheney were working on the president all along. so repetitious li, as well as alone in the office to ensure that he really power was potentially the most powerful candidate in 2004 contest his 2nd term.

and this was not something the president forgot. study this with every president since war war 2. and it is stunning to my students when they find out how domestic politics and particularly the presidents, desire to be successful influences faithful decision making were boys and girls and die in conflict overseas. l. b, j is decision, and 65 to go the rope, the road in vietnam, and go 250-0000 troops. is a good cation point. a lot of people don't believe domestic politics has that much impact on american presidential decision making, but it does. it's often the most decisive factor and with bush, he was war and he was worried about how. but from your estimation as, as a military minus event on the vietnam, as a helicopter pilot would have been possible to extract alca eda and some of the

latin in particular from afghanistan with to the all the for all of the taliban government. well, of course we didn't do that. we got a lot many years later and we didn't get him and i've got his time. we got him in pakistan, the god father. but all about that, all of us did not start and condo are as common wisdom as they started. and they started as a tool of the ios on the inner service intelligence, the cia and artist on in order to keep it after i've got to start and roiled in stable. so that pakistan would have strategic depth against its principal, amy india and, and take a great strategies to figure that out why they're doing that, even at a conversation one time alongside president sharp about that very thank which drew a smile from the general and the present august eyes behind the taliban. it's still behind that. alabama. one wonders where that's going to go because it might be the

thing that on seats the civilian government. and then lama bought eventually as this terrorist element began to become more infectious in pakistan itself. but it, it's a, it's a dangerous set of circumstances that we're leaving. and i'm a mix mind about our leaving because that the jail strategist and me, which is what i trained as a military was educated as says we shouldn't be leaving. regardless of the minimal cost we actually were paying for staying there, we shouldn't be leaving. and then the soldier in me, consulting many marine and army veterans tells me yes we should because they say don't stay, it's a miserable failure. it's a failure that as many causes most prominently, that i've gotten standard, not a state, it's a group of tribes. it has artificial borders, many of its citizens, so to speak, live in by lucas on or in pakistan proper, or in northern iran,

or isn't it? who's beckett on and don't see a border? so it was an impossible mission from the start. but it shouldn't been a state building mission. it should have been a mission of national security. of course, the want to ship if america hadn't divested the war and into a rack. could afghanistan have been a success or was it all was due to failure? excellent question. when i was serving power, when he was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, i knew that we had told president h w bush that we could not do to regional contingencies at the same time. and the reason for that is because we were cutting the military about 25 percent. the president knew that and was willing to buy that risk. didn't think there was that risk very terrible in the future. so we did it. and then along came clinton and we cut another 3 percent. so by the time we get to the point where we're

contemplating really seriously doing a rack and it was much sooner than the breast indicated, bol is, again putting on his german set and saying, mister president, you can, you can. and cheney as again putting his finger in pals chess and get out of the military business. because we had people like colonel mcgruder telling new again, rich telling don roseville that 50000 troops could do iraq. and indeed, that's what tommy franks called bow and told him he was having to deal with in terms of the war that was being contemplated. $50000.00 troops would be all nonsense. in other words, but that was what we were dealing with. and at the end of the day, your question is answered by saying yes, i've got a standby came on economy force, theatre, meaning minimal troops. the taliban more able to recover significantly. so significantly that the 100000 plus up by president obama did nothing to arrest them. and

ultimately though, you have to look at the task and the challenge, even if you put a half a 1000000 troops in afghanistan and stayed there and routed out everybody, you possibly could. maybe even eliminated half of the population. you still have the problem, i indicated earlier. it is not a state, it is not an actual entity, and it has partners as it were all around it don't like the idea of a stable functioning state. we're going to see now how much that has changed. i think it's changed or the wrong. i think it's change with those back on. i'm not sure about pakistan. i think it's changed with russia. i think it's never been that way, but got that way and now is change with china. so the neighbors are going to determine the future of us counties time. now i think plus the nature of this new and i emphasize new taliban government. coming up after the break, alex continues. his discussions with cardinal lawrenceville christian will see that

the me ah, the driven by dreamers shaped by those with the in me dares thing. we dare to ask me. ah, the pacific leg around the world,

expedition by 1000 mile round the clock of dead calm. the national every country close by the crew. gavin's food and water harbor to go to check those for sure. let me know. i got everybody locked down or no more. no food and no water. but really, you know, i'm not sure somebody either stuck a speech in the your living like the theme in a home, but in the 21st century. ah,

the, the welcome back. alex is discussing the end of engagement enough, gone on with colonel lord and wilkerson, the former chief of staff to general colin powell wilson. i'm not sure question which you're probably a better place than what slammed else in the planet cancer. where in 2003, did the intelligence come from that suggested the wolf weapons of mass destruction in iraq to justify the iraqi to vege. richard bruce cheney vice president, united states who orchestrated the office of special plans through rum spell and

douglas fight, and the pentagon and others whom george tenant, the director of central intelligence, coerced in france, jordan, germany and other places. and when i say coerced, it's not that hard to do because if you're sharing intelligence from sophisticated national technical means as the u. s. possesses with your allies, and they don't want to stop that sharing and make you angry enough to possibly curtail what cherry they will go along with your worst lodge. and that's what people did today. people talk to me about dominic ban and france and schrock in their opposition. i could tell you that the french were right in there when power was preparing for his presentation at the un, those french that tenant aloud, in saying that we were right, that there were aluminum tubes, for example, that indeed they had spawn some in their own laboratories and they spot them 298000

rpms without visible deterioration. clearly not rocket shielding or mortar shielding, clearly metal for centrifuges. so we have reinforcement from the your daniels, from the israelis from the french, from germany. we all know about curveball. now. the germans were at the, in the b and d at the end was saying things like, well maybe you shouldn't trust me, but 10 it was paying no attention to the tyler drum hell or the european representative of this. yeah, he told me afterwards that he actually registered twice, complaint about law power was going to say at the un with john mclaughlin tenants, deputy and with george candidate himself. and it didn't, it didn't wash. in fact, john essentially said the tyler is to trace too far down the track now. so there was a combination of people who colluded much the way they colluded for ronald reagan in the early eighty's to report the soviet union is being 10 feet tall. so the rock reagans arms build up would be politically sound. they concluded to make sure the

sodomy saying had no power. and i did not see through that is my greatest lifetime professional site. and was that growing realization let you go and pile the world had been sold the opposite. well, it was not the reason that you left administration and developed into a strong critics of neo colon approach to, to what all politics. actually, the motivation for me was torture. i knew that the united states military had tortured people in the philippines and tortured people during the andy and or from 186-5890 they would have tortured people in world war one and more work too. but i knew also that no president had ever officially authorized as a matter of policy torture. george w bush did,

under the pressure from dick cheney and dollar also george w bush did. that's what really turn me off the administration off us policy and company to be outspoken about that policy. you described the intervention afghanistan as being compatible to the, the great game of the 19th century with the protagonist. now, effectively being the man that agnes, the united states and china, it is not a valid comparison. do you think that's where we have no. the gamma son is still if that strategic significance between the, the 2 dominant. what will power? i think central asia is and i've kind of just happens to be central, the central asia, if our playing the grand strategies, i would say forget state building, forget nation building. all those things are cooter months of your presence there. and maybe you can do some things for women,

education and so forth. really are there for geo political and geo strategic reasons. and you just described them briefly. you're there because you're right next door to the potentially most unstable nuclear stockpile in the world. that of pakistan you want military hard power to be able to seize that stock. number, sir, you're there because your cheek in jail with the most well funded chinese base road, initially in case it turns out to be as antagonistic to our interest as some of the neoconservatives and others are saying it is. and you're there because you have a tiny little border with the largest province in china, bigger than france. you're going province where some twin, 12000000 waiters you live, who don't like the hon, chinese. so if you want to cover ca, covert operations in china, the way we try to do against, from our 19521521. then you want to be in afghanistan. and you want to use those wagers as part of your tools there,

all kinds of strategic reasons to stay in the great game as it were. but we don't seem to understand strategy anymore. so given that, and america made to not, there was no for afghanistan. what would be a given that the decision to withdraw has been made to withdraw has been effective for, for afghan this time. the best solution i can think of is the china and iran, and i noted ron's foreign minister, even this new group of hard line people into iran are doing this or trying to do this. turkey rush, others note. even india suddenly realize that it isn't good to have this instability in their midst and began to help, whatever results in the taliban government and gobble to get his act together and to be more like a modern state and more like they would wish to be in terms of stability,

help in acknowledge, financially and so forth. i, i don't for a moment think they will all in unity do that, but i think of russia and china and maybe pakistan holds off a bit. if that happens, then there's a chance that it could become more stable, that the united states might, as usual, after this, geostrategic failure have to reinserted itself at some time is clearly possible. particularly if some of the things i just described is reasons to stay suddenly become near existential nuclear weapons, really bother me today. arms control is just all part other than new start. we don't really have any more in the world and we have new nuclear powers like north korea and of course, israel with which have never been in there. we need a massive effort amongst all of us in the west to bring arms control nuclear arms control back to the front burner. and to do something about securing these nuclear

weapons that are essentially like climate change, existential at the end of the day, only in a very short, shorter time period. i'm hearing general's today flag officers in the united states military talk like they talked in the fifty's, the early fifties, that nuclear weapons do have utility. now that we can make them small and we make them tactical and we can even shoot them off ballistic missile submarines. and that they are war instruments that are feasible. this is nonsense. so how damaged as the president and the sharp town hall will, his longer town decision be justified? i think it depends almost completely on how he handles this very difficult and challenging domestic agenda. he has called on clouds. you had said something really smart, i think in book a aware of the vivid, if i'm translating the german correctly beware the vividness of transient events.

well, that's what the media lives on. of course. and cobble is a transient event. it will only become extremely important if some of the things i just talked about materialized, that transient event will be forgotten, american people, hel, substantive events are forgotten by the american people within 48 hours. and i'm looking at the polls now and i'm looking at what particularly democrats are saying, and i'm saying 5560 percent, ultimately grudgingly, in some cases in favor of biden's decision, not, not happy about the way it was executed at the end. but happy about the overall decision, so i don't think it's going to damaging failure in this domestic agenda arena will devastate him. iran. so any possibility there might be a change in the american policy. it was around a country emotional, middle east, which actually has described this genuine elections. so any prospect there might be

a, a rethink about euro. that's an excellent question too. i have often said of late that there's a theocracy in jerusalem that bothers me more than the are seeing to rod for i see a lot of reality, a lot of real security, national security, regional security, international security. good thinking and comment because we would have had it. i think that president obama and i met in the roosevelt room to talk about this long john kerry, a sector stayed in november of 2015. we would have had a much better path towards a better solution that ripple tomorrow, even with iran, had we not left the j. c, p o, a nuclear agreement that trump did that, and that my palm pale was his instrument in doing that and continuing it and amplifying and making more profound. the repercussions of lat, cancellation,

or that backing out of that treaty may have made it almost impossible to get back into it. so that's your point is well taken and it's a case i ruined regret. every time i look at it because they were our hedge, human, our, our power for 26 years, when the job was in charge, we recognized that this was a most powerful, potentially and, and really geographically and so forth, in the, in the region. and now we just disregard their at our peril and cover wilkerson military man, but, but not a distinguished professor. a your answer to your brand of republican politics, a liberal republican world view. so any hope for that came to see were for the republican party is going to be a revival of that sort of attitude or as the last and gone forever. if it is

revival, it will take another decade probably. but there are people working. there are young people working, i've been all over the country, all 50 states. i've talked to some of them 40 and under. and they're every welcome life, their financial investment, people, their bankers, their farmers out west who are sick and tired of republicans, for example in boise, idaho, polluting their water and ruining their rivers and so forth. and these fires have just added to their will they be able to co here and bring about a new republican party that i think is the domestic political question of the our here. because if not, we only have a single party system, and that's a dangerous kind of a lot of welcome. thank you so much for joining me. a male examine show. thanks for me. i really appreciate it. it started with the head of state beach. it ended with a terrorist. i think all kinds of tact,

the twin towers isis killed more than $118.00 cargo after the expanding of flood of blood and treasure american. its allies have finally left us gone on the chaos. a can bloody nature of the departure should provoke much soul searching. let us hope that it looks deeper than there but miner leaving but into their view. rationale for staying there for these 20 long years. colonel wilkerson is of the view that the great game which took him p. o britain, twice in stuff gone on, 19th century is still being played with the only difference that america and china have replaced breton and russia as the main protagonist. if so, with over 200000 days, it has been a very expensive much. and so for me alex, myself and all that issue is good bye for nice. stacy's hope to see you all again next to

ah, me in the the only one main thing is important for not as an internationally speaking to that is a nation's allowed to do anything. all the master races. and then you have the mind, nations who are the slave, the americans, rock, obama and others have had

a concept of american exceptionalism. international law exist as long as it serves the american interest. if it doesn't, it doesn't exist by turning those russians into this dangerous man that wants to take over the world. that was a conscious strategy. so some of it on your own, i english v i v. i not leashed to off in one and tablet block nato. it's our we move eastern. the reason us head jimmy. it's a dangerous is the lie. the sovereignty of all the countries, the exceptionalism that america uses and its international war planning is one of the greatest threats to the populations of different nations. if nato, what is founded shareholders in the united states and elsewhere in large companies would lose millions and millions or is business and businesses good. and that is

the reality of what we're facing, which is fashion the begging to go to. because what i've seen and witness in background was so destructive to this day, i haven't gone to sleep coming up this hour. the 1st of our in depth reports into the victims of america's brutal war on terror. pulling us off and then once on a boat detainees, mazama beg shares the floors, he said they had a woman in the next room. that was my wife, tortured with the picture of my children in front of me and asked me where you could be all. now would you like me to.