ah, hello and welcome to cross out. were all things considered? i'm peter lavelle, the by the administration's decision to leave afghanistan was correct in long overdue. however, the way americans longest war ended is a different question. it was a botched affair. the generals will most likely never be held to account, put alone marine, lieutenant colonel does face court martial, is this justice? i cross sucking military accountability. i'm joined by my guest, madame b. benjamin in washington. she's an author, as well as co founder of code, pink and charlottesville. we have david swanson. he is the executive director of world beyond war dot org and campaign coordinator for roots action dot org. and in managua, we cross the sarah flounders. she is

a co director of the international action center or a crosswalk rules and the fact that music and jumping in time you want and i always appreciated. i'm and if i go to you 1st in washington, and i'm sure all of us watched the 3 generals being held to account for the evacuation. the botched evacuation of, of kabul, and i was not satisfied, not in the least. okay. we have, we, we have the afghanistan papers that came out, i think in december, tooth, 2019. that would have been a good starting point in my opinion, because these generals have never been held to account for what their own rank said about that war for 20 years. but nobody in congress, even one to venture there, they were more upset about the optics about at all. and so it really worries me very, very much that the military is not held to account at all. as matter of fact, the more they screw things up, the more money they're given go ahead. medea and in washington are less exactly what's happening right now. it's quite sure i'm hearing that there was no

discussion in the hearings about the 20 years and all of the atrocities that the us committed the killing of so many civilians, the torture that the u. s. was involved in that the international criminal court would like to pursue, but i can't because of us pressure the corruption that is talked about as always talked about on the part of the afghans but not the u. s. companies. the weapons companies that made hundreds of millions of dollars from this disastrous fiasco at the mercenaries like blackboard or the interrogators like tight. and i believe it was more profit during that went on for 20 years. yeah, we didn't hear about all the civilian deaths. we didn't hear about any of the things that the american people deserve to know or write a general's year after year. we're telling us that victory was just around the

corner. so yes, as far as i'm concerned, i didn't grab scratch the surface of what we needed to hear and we still, i deserve to know. you know, david, the, the way i look at this 20 year old fiasco deadly and very expensive. it was just a grip, there was a business model, and everybody made out except for a soldiers that died needlessly. and of course, afghans. but at, if you step back and look at it as a business model, you must marvel out and how much money was being made, how much money was being turned around. and in and, and again, nobody wants to talk about that part of it here. and late when they compared to iraq. oh my goodness we, we downsize there, so we have to keep the grip going on in afghanistan. nobody wants to speak the truth about that. go ahead, david. well, you're obviously right. a huge amounts of money made, but it's important. we remember that it's bad for most businesses. it's bad for

wall street in general, and they will tell you that. but it's tremendous for war profiteers for weapons dealers for all variety of reconstruction contractors. and they have a grip on the u. s. government, through their campaign contributions, otherwise known as bribes through the, the jobs that they have spread across every district, making little bits of weapons. and so these wars really are for money as well as for the politics as well as for the medias approval as well as for the up the power lost the mad, irrational drive to war that, that controls these people. and so there, there is no accountability, you have a war ending and absolutely no discussion of reducing military spending. instead going up with bipartisan harmony, with the merest pretense from the more progressive members of the us congress, that they were going to do anything at all about it. the so called defense spending

reduction caucus that they talked about months ago, never even materialized. i. instead, you have this obsession with the 2 biggest bills ever in history, of which combined, by the way, are, you know, dramatically less than the annual spending of the military bill that has no controversy around it whatsoever. and just goes up up, up, no matter who's president, no matter what parties in control and regardless of ending the so called longest war, which is only the longest war as long as native americans are not human beings. and the wars against them don't count. you know, sarah, i mean if you're watching u. s domestic politics or they're talking about spending bills reconciliation infrastructure to him. exactly. right. i mean, if you go or particularly last 20 years of the defense expenditures that it's a small beer, that's peanuts compared to the they're obsessed with the assessing what the, the budget is for social services. and there'll be something, but there's never,

i mean, just a rubber stamp here. and on top of it again, going back to the 3 clown generals that were speaking, you know, being, being held to account, which they weren't. it was almost always, it was how you did, how you flipped on the side of trump, or for him or against them. i mean, that is the binary that they, everything goes around. and that's a very easy, convenient binary because you never talk about anything that actually did happen, like a grist. ok, or how generals did this rotation? you do enough rotations, you get, you get promoted. i mean, it was just a, a circus here, around and around. and around and, but i know it just how you feel about donald trump in his plan. it's completely immaterial. and this is how they switch and bait the conversation all the time. go ahead, sarah. well, it's absolutely a switch and bait on every level, and that's the way it's meant. that's the way they plan it to be that regardless of who's in and it is whether it's a trump or

a by the wars and the spectacular waste for crucial amounts of money that go for these wars is never examined. there really should be a demand for accountability that from, from the generals to the politicians, and especially to military corporation say, be charged with war crimes. i mean, really crimes against humanity for what they did in afghanistan and for what they're continuing to do. what they're determined to do really waste their enormous resources of the planet in this crucial time on more wars and planning for the next work. so they're very, very willing to just dismiss this war and make it a trump versus biden. that's easy. and there is no examination of the criminal criminal policy and of the, the intentional profiteering off of mass destruction. and they're on to planning the next war, whether it is against china, which it certainly is. and there, there,

there's really bipartisan support for an even larger military budget. and then lots of small wars done through sanctions and interventions and destabilization. the whole thing is a criminal policy. and it staged in a way that no fundamental question is asked. so it's theater. it will theater and it's intentional theater, but it's a bit media it's, i like that it, but it's a business model theater because it's, it's, it, there's the strategic objectives are never made any clear, ever clear what, what does winning mean? that's never clear. but the only thing that is clear is waiting a conflict ok and 90 percent of the time, if not 99 percent of that. i mean is a conflict against people that can't defend themselves. it's a, it's a model to generate money for a small group of people and, and david's absolutely right. it crowds out money for a very important things. i mean, for an industrialized country,

a modern industrialized country, the united states stands alone and not having health care for people. okay. that, but we choose to put our resources somewhere else, but not for strategic reasons. it's for the interests of a very small group of people. it's not about strategic thinking. it's not really about war. it's about waging operations that generate huge profits for a small group of people go ahead in washington. it is really mind boggling to think of the grip that this small group of companies have on the u. s. policy. david talked about how the weapons are made in every single district around the country. and then it's a jobs program where we know that if you put that money into education or health care or took it up in helicopters and dropped it down on people will do much better job for the economy. then putting it into the war machine. and it is a bribery, you see that the money that goes from these war profiteers to congress don't just

go to everybody. they directed to the services committee on the foreign relations committee because those are the ones that keep the war machine well oiled. and then to look at the revolving door, i to see that there are former generals that are on the boards of these weapons companies. to see the revolving door inside the pentagon into these lobby groups. it is really disgusting. you know, when the u. s. has talked about that as a democracy, we really have to pull our charts that show who is in control, who gets to make these decisions and where the money is flowing. and i also want to add peter to condemn the mainstream media because it was what was happening for 20 years, or they didn't tell us about how they don't strikes were killing civilians until the last one and the u. s. was being and then they said, oh, well, it was actually

a family that was killed with 7 children. what about the thousands of other ones that were supposedly hitting their targets? so we have been bamboozled by this machine that includes the mainstream media that does not want to pull the covers out over and let the american people see just our tax dollars. we're being use just millions and make us less safe here at home and make the world i rest safe place. you know, david, it's such an excellent point. i mean, everybody forgotten about afghanistan for 20 years until kabul airport. okay, and that's the media's fault. go ahead, david, before we go to the break, i absolutely right. and you have also retired generals in the pay of weapons companies as the spokes people and the experts on the big corporate media outlets setting the agenda openly. and so we have this, you know, outraged that there were generals in back room meetings,

resist eden trump's ideas for it that were for evacuating certain wars when he was president. but usually it's out in the open. usually it's the generals out in public telling president obama, how many more troops he has to send to afghanistan and, and the, the media is dominated by both the military, the current military. okay, and the game and all that hold that thought we got, she didn't have to go to hard break. and after that hard break, we'll continue our discussion on military accountability. stay with it. ah,

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ah, welcome back to cross stock where all things are considered. i'm capable of l to remind you. we're discussing military accountability. i go back to davidson said unfortunately, cut them out before we went to the break. you know, david, i think what are the most odious, most disgusting things i've seen the media ever do. and it comes so war and it was during the trump administration when i, when trump ordered the missile attack on syrian and b. c news commented, showing video footage of the missiles being launched from a, from a ships in the mediterranean. look at those beautiful missiles. okay. and for me, that disgusting, odious mom description puts it into a capsule. how the media gives a free pass to the military. because basically what it is, it is more at feodor,

it's diagrams, it's graphics. you never really see dead people, and that's what bore is all about, isn't it? you know, they did so sanitized. okay. and the media does that. and of course, as you said before, we went to the break. you had some former general sitting right next to the, at the presenter explaining all of this how it works, which of course, is a switch in bait in itself. go ahead david. right little of trump was finally presidential when he blew up enough sago, which had to be in the back of biden's head when people were complaining about how he was ending a war. oh, well, i'll blow up some people and that will make them declare me. supremely presidential i and of course he had the misfortune of blowing up some people in cobble as medea sat in a place. and at a time where it had to be news on like 20 years of blowing up people in the same country in a similar way. that wasn't news. i and the one guy that might be held accountable. i don't think there's much chance of any one are involved in that decision being held accountable. the one guy is the guy who criticized the exit of the war. the

ending of the war, low ranking officer may be held accountable. and of course, it's because there were u. s. troops killed even though there as in the entire war. they were, this is the minority. the vast majority of the people killed. nobody knows about. this is the major accomplishment of the u. s. media, the u. s. public thinks that u. s. war deaths are a significant percentage of the desk in u. s. wars, whereas these are one sided slaughters and nobody knows that in incredible propaganda accomplishment in. i'm really glad you made the segue here because lieutenant colonel stuart um schiller and let me go to sarah here. i mean, he's turning it to the fall guy for the war a 20 year old war, the longest war and american history. i find it really, truly extraordinary. i've watched his videos. i don't see what your disagree, what you, how you can disagree with what he had to say,

okay. but he's being made accountable for what went wrong, not the generals that lied to the mediate, lied to the presidents and presidents love to be lied to. it's not get, you know, listen, been mistaken about that. they love to be lied to, so they don't have to take any responsibility. but this lieutenant colonel, he's left all alone. and to take the brunt of this here, and it looks like the military is going to punch down really hard, 6 counts against him. go ahead sir. well, the always, this is media theater and they will always find somebody who is the, you know, the mediate for guy of the minute. i certainly wish he had gone a bit higher up the food chain than just his immediate officers not telling the truth to the troops because these are wars created for corporate profit. now i'm speaking from managua, where u. s. wars ripped apart central america years ago and continue continue relentlessly to destroy the people of latin america. central america. absolutely.

with sanctions, with all kinds of military threats. so it's the same policies that are used. there's destructive drone attacks, but there's also sanctions on $39.00 countries. now a 3rd of the world's population, an endless, endless corporate drive for more wars, for more expenses. and that is what is so criminal, it's criminal for the people right here. and when we raise that, the generals who absolutely are part of this whole, this whole profit making scheme, we got to bring in, at the same time, the corporations and the politicians and the media, the media that serves as a public relations arm for war. and doesn't tell us the real cost of the wars, whether it's the wars here against nicaragua, where they're planning new threats right now in order to disrupt in order to destabilize or planning their plans against china or their plans right now in

afghanistan, they pulled on the back and stand, what did they also pulled out? every dollar, every ounce of medicine, every crucial supply. suddenly there sanctions on afghanistan at the same time saying this will create a devastating famine. so it means that the wars don't end even on afghanistan when the troops lead, they got another plan, even more and sinister against the population. bear in mind is such a fascinating conversation, because the way the media presents this, you know, these, these cornwell wars. so let's think about the word war and okay, a means to military's fighting each other, right? i mean, that's kind of a dictionary definition, but this is never the case. this is about a military destroying civil society. it destroying civilian lives, to join their economic livelihood. their natural resources, but it's called a war that's not a war. ok. and i think it because i work in media,

this is what is most painful for me. is that media across the board. they never want to talk about the culpability their own culpability for these disastrous decisions and their consequences. and they're in, there's never any end to it. here you, people watching this program will look at us and they'll say, i've never heard this before. and they're right, because the media doesn't talk about these things, and the consequence is go ahead in washington. well, one sided except the u. s. loses, so it's quite remarkable with all this overwhelming military power. and they still can't win in these was i knew it was defeated by the taliban with just a fraction of the resources that the u. s. military had and the u. s. a. back to afghan army. that was, as we spend tens of billions, i think over $80000000000.00 pro training that just evaporated. so it's astounding

that the american public doesn't say what are we doing, and why are we throwing so much money into this military? that doesn't even when was and isn't this a time to really cut the pentagon budget, which is something that our organization is really involved along with david groups when without war and sarah flounders, i mean we are trying to push for a real grass roots up rising to say, why are you throwing more money at this military and the death and destruction that's here it talks about is not just the military, it's through the economic warfare that is now one of the major ways that the u. s. wages these wars with sanctions that are so cruel and barbaric that they're designed to star people so that people will rise up against the government. so yes, there is a lot that needs to be exposed to bad. b u. s. policy or receives but more importantly, we need a stronger movement that will give some find there was in congress,

even those who call themselves progressive to say enough is enough. we need to slash the military spending in put it into people's needs. yeah, i know everybody knows i'm a conservative here and i and i and my panel members here i consider all good friends because we have a common cause on, on many issues here. but you know, when i look at some of them, i don't need to use names here, but some of the progressive or so called progressives in congress when they're specifically like about cuba, about venezuela. they answer is always this. it's kind a complicated. no, it's not complicated, it's wrong. okay. and that's why these progressives, iron dome, for israel, i vote present. okay, why, why, okay, why or what does that mean? okay, david, tell me that this is what drives me nuts here. you so, you know, we have to take on the beast, we have to cut of the budgets and then when you're,

you're there, i vote present. okay. i mean, this is just doesn't make any sense to me or they're bought off or they really don't know what they're talking about or this is the way they get elected. and then once you empower you, change your mind. i don't know. go ahead, david, because they are within a very corrupt system and the very best of the congress members are only slightly better than the very worst of the congress members. and the notion that activist groups should treat them as fellow activists is absurd. we should treat them as elected officials, now need to be pressured because they are generally spineless. alma and i, i, i, i love it, agree with everything medea's benjamin says, except that i don't work for when without war i work for world beyond war, which has a similar name and, and the case that we make is that not only is the, is this vast amounts of money wasted that could have saved lives that used to kill lives. and not only does the united states lose all of its wars, but they are counterproductive, they make the united states less safe rather than more safe. and we know where

virtually every suicide terrorist attack in the world comes from. it comes from trying to get occupations out of other peoples countries. and so, unless you are absolutely devoted to occupying other countries around the world, you could have simply ended those occupations rather than spend 20 years making the world a less safe, more damaged are place killing millions of people, creating millions of refugees in the process. it's absolute madness. there's it isn't answering what would, depending on one of that one of the most, the time consuming a endeavors they have is to create it, the threats, threat, inflation and, and, and they, and they rall, everybody up. and that means we need more money. okay. i mean, this is what it is, it's, it's all a sham here, okay? and the media goes along with it because i truly believe that if the public really knew they would have a much more articulate demand to change things. but if you're not told,

like i said, you know, for 20 years, what happened to afghanistan out? oh boom, it's the airport. okay, that's the war in, in a nutshell that's, that's because of the media one minute to you, sarah. good, go ahead and finish it off. it is because of the media because the, the corporate media is part of the war machine. and it becomes a justification for war. i mean, as i say again, i'm this, i'm speaking from nicaragua, which was declared such a dire threat to the national security of the u. s. that what was called the nic act was rushed to congress, which is all out war against this small country that's made incredible gains in health care and education. that is threatening. and it's presented that way, the media, whether it is in afghanistan or the next war, or the military budget. again and again, it is an intentional, intentional cutting censorship of what we really need to know and also what we

desperately need in a country with the highest coven rates in the world, and no end in sight where there's climate disasters that impact the average person and floods and fires and droughts, no attention is given to that. no attention intentionally. it's all treated as a media spectacle, but not anything the can and should be solved. what's the money goes unrelentingly to the pentagon. 12 no 10 projects. it's always done in the name to save these poor people from their leaders. that's what it's always done. it's, it's really incredible. okay, run out of time. i want to thank my guess and watch it in charlottesville, adam now, and i want to thank our viewers for watching us here at ortiz. see you next time. remember crawford, rules ah, ah

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but left behind norwich. they explicitly state that it was the constant intimidation and billing by bank officers. that late to i talked to spy obscene. these people up nor sold the headlines here when asi international, a facebook whistle blow, who've come to the cold in congress for a crackdown on facebook is now her self funded scrutiny. critics say how close tie to the democrat show she's pushing their agenda for social media censorship. the european parliament passed as a non binding resolution seeking to ban police. you so facial recognition, software and public places with emmy peas hailing it as a major victory on the program august's debate. the issue is good news. european criminals owned services. i think

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