in oh right now, there are 2000000000 people who are overweight or obese. it's profitable to sell food that is pricey and sugary and faulty and addicted. not at the individual level. it's not individual willpower. and if we go on believing that will never change as obesity epidemic, that industry has been influencing very deeply. the medical and scientific establishment, ah, what's driving the its corporate, me. ah, the the,

the news not action or attention what's going underground 20 years since preparations for the us war on afghanistan began in the wake of the 911 terrorist attacks and by 2 will be speaking to the man who is chief of stuff to george w bush's secretary of state colin powell but 1st to one of the greatest chronic lives of the united states empire, a filmmaker explored both the horror of 911 and the planning of us imperialist was before and after 9112001, and join. now, by all of a stone oscar winning director and writer films like salvador j, f, k, world trade center, nixon, wolf, street, and platoon. all of a thanks so much for coming back. gone. happy birthday. that's what i got to say to

you. first of all, i mean the commentators are all talking about how your films one way to cope with 911 the 20 or anniversary. can you see why $75.00 is very young and you should be putting out at least 2 or 3 feature films a year now. my father lived to about 75. exactly. so i think, i think, you know, modern times had been good to us and prosperity has been good to us and allowed us to live longer. so i'm grateful. and i hope i stay young and making films as tough . but i've been working really hard on these 2 documentaries that are coming out j f k one. we talked about con, that's coming out in november 22. the birth date of his murder. and the other one will be coming out early next year. the clean energy one, which i did a lot of work on, and i was in paris, scoring it with the composer of angelic, the greek composer who i worked with before and he's wonderful is great,

great score and about documentaries, feature films are much tougher to make yeah, i mean, but i was thinking, bryan diploma, who directed scarface, which he wrote, i mean, he's getting on, he's older than you. switching out film feature films out. i mean, can you see why your fan certainly would think as the war on terror so cold and does new phases? they need you more than ever. keep in mind the way i see it is what feature film could be as important as climate change. and then when you see this film i did, which is called star power, you'll understand that it's very important. it's something that will change people's perception of what's going on and may help the world enormously to adapt. and that's, that's why i did it. so my purpose,

it's about purpose and there's no nobler purpose in my opinion than to do and to serve mankind. so a film is fine, but it's so hard to have impact around the world was something like this. i mean, i want to come back on to talk about that film when, when it's out. of course, i actually saw a world trade center theoretically as jaundra film, i suppose, a disaster movie. but then i thought again about it, thinking it was a class movie, some people i think you yourself said, you know, you save the politics for w about george w bush and his response. but do you think, well trade center and why you like this bill is because there's something about the american working class very let. it was a pure film for me. it was something that i did it because i thought there was so much it was 4 years after the event and there was resistance to making it even then because it was close to it and we shot some of it in new york city. so we had

a lot of opposition from political groups. we had to negotiate the tight rope there to get close to the world trade center and to do it. but the point of it was that these men existed these 2 men, this their story and their families, and the rescuers who came to save them. they were the 18th and 18th, 19 survivors out of 20 survivors out of the world trade center. $18.19 they were under the under there for about 30 hours 36 hours and the rescuers took their took great risks to get down into the rubble. it was such a mess and the real rescuers played themselves. but most of them they were. i had about 80 people who were in that movie who actually had been there. what i thought was interesting about the movie was it, it kept it down to earth. it was simple. the plot, it was about what really happened that day as opposed to all the hysteria in the air. if you remember about who did this, what happened to horror the tragedy a lot,

it was a lot of it was exaggerated high to go to war by bush and his group. and, and i think most of the media joined in on that. i was kind of turned off by it because i think heroism is simple. it's not elaborated on it's not called attention to you just done. and that's what those guys represented to me and they were the real warriors. instead of going off in finance and afghan, stan or iraq, you know, trying to get revenge. no. concentrate on here on helping people here. and that's what i was about. very simple, very humble. and those 2 guys mclaughlin. and when they are true, true wars of spirit they survived, and they're still humble. and i think that's why emergency services obviously, are always respect that even when they don't get the pay raises that austerity demands of them arguably have you did then tackle that bigger geopolitical angle,

as well as the personal upper class angle of george w bush and his response and, and you, you firmly believe that the u. s. response was, was based on imperialism, emotionalism and imperialism. yes. very emotional. revenge oriented. we got to get, we got to get them for the who's them. we didn't even know who them were. you know, they were saudi arabian sony irradiance mostly saudi arabian terrorists. but they were led really by chic mohammad. and the more you investigated his story, the more you realized that he organized the whole things in his brain. he was the guy put it together from, from, from scratch. he knew people from the 93 bombing, and he went back there and he travel the organized. he only made one or 2 trips to c o, some of the enlightenment, who blessed blessed it, but not really participated in the planning of it. although key work,

the leg work was done in places like hamburg and in malaysia, san diego and san diego. yeah, and inside the united states, of course, you know, mongers knows it was we never, we lost focus at that moment. we were terrified by horrified, exaggerated, but we didn't really look at what happened. among other things we should look at was why, why did they do it? you know, bush famously said they and they envy our freedoms. and i was nonsense they, they did it because of 2 reasons. and osama stated very clearly, one was our invasion. so are putting land troops on, you know, in the holy land in saudi arabia. george bush had done that in 1991 to when he went to the war in kuwait. that was a misunderstanding of their culture. and the 2nd reason, of course, was america support for israel, which had intensified over those years and become more and more one sided. those

are the 2 reasons that were given. people just kinda lost track of that in the, in those need to get revenge against hussein sadam hussein in iraq. and frankly, if you follow the events closely and i did, i knew one of the people who actually was involved in the c. i went over there and led that horseback charges across afghanistan. they worked the see. i actually succeeded in that in that opperation was one of the few times they have succeeded and they drove out the, the time with them and with the warlords and the northern alliance. it was over. the thing was over in december, january of the name of that year. and instead of disengaged at that point and negotiating, we've been in huge amount of troops. and they had nothing to do basically except occupied places where people didn't know they were and what they weren't. they didn't understand the landscape customs. and they went out in on patrols into these

villages. and they, as we did and vietnam, they are kind of nice people, but just being there and go on to vietnam and in part 2. and of course, palestine has been bombed in the past few days and continues to be inspire groups. the israeli bombing of gaz this week, as you just to quickly ask you though, is it true that you and david fincher and john singleton whereas to speak to the u . s. military about disaster scenario planning? some of the us military toward the film directors would know about it or is that a myth? i don't remember that. i'm sorry, but they were, i was involved in a pentagon in a government, a rearranged seminar with a bunch of filmmakers. and we were consulted as to what what was going on when i saw it work, but it had no meaning. it was just a reach out, reach out to another group, spending money was what they were doing. the government spent

a fortune doing all this stuff, and as you know, it was wasted money as it wasn't afghan. yeah, they taken their advice. your advice know that there wouldn't have been the war and iraq her instance. i mean, on the withdrawal from afghanistan, larry wilkerson, i mean, he's been going to tell us, and by do we're going to ask him when he's been talking about this. i mean, do you think it's possible that the pentagon had a interest in it being a chaotic withdrawal because there are voices in the military industrial complex that didn't want them to withdraw from afghanistan, because a lot of profits to be made out of a continued war there occupation, i don't see it that way at all or perhaps i'm in the minority, but frankly in terms of withdrawal, i think it was pretty good. i mean it's, it's never easy to get out of a country under that situation after 20 years of, or, and after we had so many analyzes, we created so many, so many people worked with us. it wasn't easy. i didn't think it was about growing

all. i think it was his name morsel, made more hysterical by our media talking about, you know, we have one person point off an airplane. the few people are killed here and there it's, you know, that's the price of war. i don't know what they're talking about. that wasn't bad. saigon was in a sense, the same rush to get out. right. and of course, it was very messy. and it was on plan for that way, but that's the nature of the withdraw. it's not it. when napoleon left moscow, he got wiped down on the way back. if you remember, his army was decimated by the time we got to the borders of poland. the old pole know it was wrong is not easy. so i think they're buying it, handled it well. i think he, he was not hysterical. he stayed firm and he did it because most american presidents would fold and cook and go while i change my, my, we're going to say, you know, because of the poles, you know, the poles are always tough on presidents who are decisive in doing something. and i applaud biden for that, and i like and i liked him for that because i like,

i like the fact that he's older. i like the fact that may because i'm 75, but i appreciate a man who isn't rushing to judgment like bush was or trump would be a man who thinks about things and is deliberate and as cool when. when the criticism comes. yeah. but he got to do what your hero, he got to do what you are hero, jeff k couldn't do when it came to viet now. while he would, he would you make fair in your document and you mentioned, you know, i'm sure there was a lot of opposition and we went into the glass room. i just want to reiterate to you that there is no, no, no. the conclusion of that is that we've got our history wrong. they keep saying that lyndon johnson fulfilled the policies of kennedy and nom and various other places. he didn't, he 180 degrees opposite. kennedy was withdrawing from vietnam and issued orders to such mcnamara and bundy both confirmed it in books and so have several other people

. it's just our historians have not called up to that yet. all right, i'll stop you there more from all of us down after this break as well as the man who is chief of staff the colin powell, george w bush's secretary of state, played by jeffrey wright in all of his stones w ah, when our show seemed wrong, when old joe don't any room to shape out the scene because after an engagement equal the trail, when so many find themselves will depart, we choose to look for common ground in the welcome back. i'm still here with the iconic director of such hills as wall

street w amplitude of a stone given it's your birthday. i must also ask about the film you did so much work on it never came to pass. sy hersh has been on this show numerous times. will we ever get to see the my lai massacre film? is it we never going to see it. i wish we'd be able to make it now was a loss of will on the part of the investors. and the producer, the producing company and united artists. and also i have to say, bruce willis did withdraw and that didn't make things easier. although nick cage was willing to step in and do it. the point was that it was had a lot to do with the 2008 crash merrill lynch was supporting the film financially part of it. and when they were hit very hard and that crash and then the crash, let's get to the crash because i don't know whether you know this where your birthday is the same day as the largest us bankruptcy in history. lehman

brothers, you probably remember it. i remember very well there was, you know, but they, when they went but a lot that was pretty scary. the whole period there. i would say for real, there was a real there was a tremendous danger in the air of bankruptcy and, you know, money markets were frozen and all that stuff. and so much, you know, i'm, i'm not in economic actually, but i can say to you that, that films about it. and i would like to point out that wall street originally was, was the motivated by what i saw is greed. that on wall street in 1900 eighty's or so people were suddenly my age were making big money, were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. and i was kind of shocked by because the kids that i'd worked grown up with were not that bright, but they were making big money. and this went on the wall street phenomena went on to the ninety's which surprised me and continued through the 2000 and by 2008. you

have to realize that the people, the, the character played gecko, who is a band and now become the banks. are banks are investment banks were doing the same kind of stuff the gecko was doing in 1986. and that's what led to the course of mortgage and the credit union. the credit disasters lead to this collapse in 2008. so in other words, we're dealing with billions of dollars now instead of millions. and that was a big shock to many people, including me. i'm surprised by i was surprised by and i still can't believe we're still going on and now we're getting bigger and bigger numbers, really. everybody. and maybe that's why i need a sequel to money. money. after that, i don't want to make so many ideas out there. i'm giving it. okay. well, i, you know, gillian, independence, days this saturday we've been covering that other 911 and i know we spoke to you

and people could watch that interview about the 1st volume of your already by august. where you talk about how you smuggle in the little a fascination of v. i n the diplomat in washington into scarface. i mean, i did, they know, did hollywood know that he was smuggling in a scene that relates to they were, it was, was not certainly they didn't want anything to political and certainly the producer at that time worked against it. i mean, he was trying to tone down in political suggestions, but he saw the cause, you show me would see the involvement with the people who were trying to kill the diplomat in new york. and those people ended up being the enemy of scarf, of joining montana who abruptly cancel the plan by shooting and turning the whole thing around. so scarface became the enemy of our central government or our ca, and they got rid of them. they got rid of them,

the one who attacked that dimension at the end. it was completely exaggerated, but the people who killed scarface were indeed people who felt that they had been betrayed by the sky. all of us down having by day and thank you. thank you. or she, you've always been, well, you know, it's been a long thank you and for supporting me in the to the years. well, it's 20 years to the day since us president george w bush made his 1st radio address to the nation up to the 911 atrocities in new york and washington announcing the plan for a comprehensive assault on terrorism. joining me now from falls church, virginia is retired, colonel larry wilkerson former us sector state colin powell is chief of staff and the men involved in the decision to invade iraq retired. colonel, thanks so much for coming on. let's just start taking you back to the day you saw and witnessed the attacks on new york. i understand that the 1st reaction of the

team there, the state department and elsewhere in the administration may have been to to resign for george w bush resigned. dick cheney to resign and realize that they hadn't protected the homeland. well, i don't think they were contemplating resigning. i think they were contemplating the fear that the american people would react adversely towards their ministration after all, they had no political mandate. their political mandate was a supreme court decision. there were still being questioned all across the land and indeed is still be in question today. fear and rate was how they made the decisions they made in the aftermath. that's not a good environment in which to make national security decisions for fear, as i indicated was they will get rid of us. but then there was a quick realization really coming after the debrief owl. and the megaphone in new york where the president said, and the people who did this will hear from us that his polls would skyrocket and

they did. they went towards 90 percent and beyond. and that he could as call ro told him, be assured reelection, unlike his father and 2004, if only he played this wise. so they quickly became motivated by political considerations, domestic political considerations, as well as that rate. well, clearly that's, that's democracy, the, the poll numbers. and so, and how quickly did the poll numbers of the $911.00 mix up fear ethically, with a strategy involving defense companies on k street, and how this can be manipulated into a, into a money spinning idea off the bodies of those who are killed. well, this is vice president cheney's for the day here. after all, he'd been the secretary of defense who introduced halliburton to op sourcing for the pentagon. halliburton actually did the study, they came back and said, oh, this is a marvelous idea mister sector. we should do this,

and of course we proceeded to do it after that eisenhower is wanting in january 1960 about the military industrial complex was just put on steroids. the complex became desirous of war analysts war. they would feed them like a cash cow and keep them alive and breathing and their ceo's making enormous salaries and their company solver. that's why we expanded nato to a certain extent to which so we could bring the poles and others into buying these equipments made by our arms merchants. so this complex was largely responsible for the military staying in afghanistan for 20 some odd years. as recently as august, you didn't believe biden would get the troops out. is that because the ca is still there? there are still us assets in afghanistan. we just completely wrong about it. i mean, you said it's just to g o strategic as regards china's belton road for the u. s. to

leave. well, i quickly became apprised by a number of methods. so the fact that pentagon didn't think that way, depending on wasn't thinking strategically at all. it was thinking, as i just expressed it in terms of its cas county, i was just talking about in the past couple of weeks, it was only august. you didn't believe biden was gonna withdraw troops. and of course, some people say they may well have been advisors to have a k or to withdrawal, to show presidents. this is what happens when you overrule those kinds of defense company programs. you said, no, i want to know what you think it's true. well, the military has already started his dad in the bacteria. there shibboleth now is. oh, it was not a military defeat, it was political to pay. they clearly failed president button. when he did do what i said he wouldn't do it. i thought this strategic necessity staying somewhere near pakistan's nuclear weapons and with our power and somewhere near the base road

initiative and in a place that has a border with job small border but a border on a flank we never would be next to were it not for our county. but that strategy, that strategic appraisal didn't whole. i mean, we've heard on this program how the initial afghan extern push was actually part of, well, it's been described as part of a desire to improve pipeline resource management of gas unit. carl and the links, of course, to people you, you served why the journalist still claim now that the $911.00 attacks were planned enough canister when they were planned by saudis in san diego and in the united states. well, that's a continuing fall. i think of the 911 commission and other efforts associated with it. i think you can lay 911 and what happened on 911 at the saudi feet,

as well as any other state in the world. perhaps more so they are the greatest a sponsor of terrorism in the world. and they still are whether or not royal's had anything to do with it. that is to say, people in the actual government and re odd is another matter. and a matter that should be investigated to the degree that saudi intelligence was probably the, the hijackers themselves were probably agents of saudi intelligence. i don't think i ever made that direct statement, but i would say after knowing 35 will and others involved with saudi intelligence. but it would be absolutely impossible for me to be made to believe that their intelligence didn't know about them. obviously there's that government completely denies they were anything to do with it. so what about biden's executive order to release these $28.00 pages from the $911.00 report. do you think within the next 6 months they will be released or just released heavily rather reacted to protect the

united states. his great great receiver alarms to bomb you haven't. if the latter, if they are released, i think it will probably be redacted. and i look at the 6000 page senate select committee on intelligence report on torture, mainly focused on this the i a and i've read the executive summary and done the inquiry myself with the north carolina commission inquiry on porter. and i've got to say that would be even more devastating than the $28.00 pages of margaret. because you would have to, if you read that 6000 page report, you would have to, i think, demands from accountability or be on elected for shortly by the american people. i mean, i mean when you advise colin powell for that famous speech of the un security council where he lied, i presume you think he lied about the weapons of mass destruction. when you read, when you write to mark warner, the intelligence committee, about the torture allegations you're saying, you get replies so far,

i haven't gotten any so far. we've tried every staff or we know that might be sympathetic to our views, the north carolina commission. but we have not been able to get warner to even grant us the meeting. and let me correct one thing you said there, i don't think colin powell lied. i think that's a bit of a stretch. i think what happened was the october 2002 national intelligence assessment accepted by the congress. both houses accepted by most of the government accepted by france. israel jordan, germany, the you have other fellow intelligence agencies accepted. that is the truth. and the reasonable, i knew you had previously said that the famous half a 1000000 children killed by us sanctions and british sanctions on iraq let alone the other economic sanctions had destroyed the saddam hussein's capabilities. you knew that why did you switch? i don't know that either. that's putting words in my mouth. again,

i knew that the sanctions have been unsuccessful. news thanks. really had been effective against saddam hussein. specifically in terms of hurting children and women and all manner of other people, saddam had no problems whatsoever. building castle after castle and fortifications and buying things for his military and so forth. there were some validity to walk, to validity that made saddam still a security problem. with regard to his neighbors and with regard to his own people, while tens of millions killed, wounded or displaced, just finally did a salma ban. and when, i mean you've talked so eloquently about the corruption that torture, the heroine, the relations between the cia and the i s i in pakistan. and now the united states has lost so much so much in this world since the $911.00 attacks did he $7.00 trillion dollars counting the cost over time to take care of the veterans.

and we paid a lot of defense company salaries at the high board, but i mean, did he win in trying to destroy what was the origin idea of the american dream? i think when we're looking at those lines projections strictly on that one for why they are in 1998. i think he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams as he succeeded, as he thought with the soviet union, their empire ended. i think our empire is going down pretty fast right now, and i'm beginning to believe that it's on salvageable. retired colonel. very welcome and thank you for the show. we'll be back in the 20th for the day. then the us defense secretary donald rumsfeld announced who was given the amount to an ending war. and you'll then keep in touch my social media and let us know if you think the global war on terror has really ended

the the, the, the the breaking news on our natural gas prices, sir, just to an old time record in europe. now starting at $964.00 per 1000 cubic meters, right by the, our sparking phase of a winter energy crisis. the us secretary of state admits he has no idea who was killed in a drone strike in afghanistan last month. you know, full assessment will be, will be for you don't know if it was in a worker or an ices k operative. i can't speak to that and i can't speak to that in the setting in any event. so you don't know or won't tell us. i don't, i don't know because we're reviewing.