approve at least the government and the government to stop this all in a moment. it, of course, may conceive that mas okay, up to they don't forget lawson one use available on a website, can squeeze all the stories in just here in half an hour. check them out at arctic circle. ah, ah. hello and welcome to cross out. were all things are considered. i'm peter lavelle, the biden ministrations 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, but alone marine lieutenant colonel does face court martial. is this justice?

i cross sucking military accountability. i'm joined by my guest indian b benjamin in washington. she is an author, as well as co founder of code pink in charlottesville. we have david swanson. he is the executive director of world beyond war dot org, an campaign coordinator for roots action dot org. and in managua, we cross the center flounders. she is a co director of the international action center or a crosswalk rules and the fact that means he can jump in in time you want and i always appreciate it. i'm. and if i go to you 1st in washington, and i'm sure all of us watched out the 3 generals being held to account for the evacuation. the botched evacuation of the 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 a 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 want to venture there. they were more upset about the optics about at all. and so it really worries me very, very much that be a military is not held to account at all. as matter fact, the more they screw things up, the more money they're given. go head media in washington are less exactly what's happening right now. it's quite extraordinary that there was no discussion in those 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 can't because of us pressure. the corruption that is talked about is 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.

abby mercenaries like blackboard or the interrogators like typed and the i'm believe it or we're profit during that wind. i'm for 20 years. yeah. we didn't hear about all the civilian gas. we didn't hear about any of the things that the american people deserve to know or why the generals year after year were telling us that victory was just around the corner. so yes, as far as i'm concerned, i didn't scraps to 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 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 whose 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, if you're watching u. s. domestic politics or to learn, they're talking about spending bills reconciliation infrastructure to him. exactly . right. i mean, if you go or regularly 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 they'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 gripped, okay, or how generals did this rotation? you do end up rotation, 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 ship. 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 profit tearing 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 was theater and it's intentional theater, but it's a big movie. 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 it 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 i'm 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. ringback 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 they know 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 a 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 poor 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 was safe place. you know,

it's such an excellent point. i mean, everybody forgotten about afghanistan for 20 years until couple airport. ok, and that's the media's fault. go ahead, david, before we go to the break. 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, outrage that there were generals in backroom meetings resisting trumps ideas for 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 the media is dominated by both the military, the current military. okay. yeah, and that's all we got. she didn't have to go to hard break. and after about hard break, we'll continue our discussion on military accountability state with

with other financial survival guys. i don't fight a guy on the futures as of friday. that's the last time i buy it from the future. so crocker watch kaiser report. oh, the way of life of reindeer is leading a traditionally nomadic lifestyle in the tundra is similar to a parallel reality. i'm with women carry the weight of the household work on their shoulders. a man this wheeled city

london is thinking. however, in the vast expanse of russia, there is a spot where a housewife could secure a regular and common stunted. it's in the fall semester. i'm sure i'm not like any jennings in ah ah, welcome back to cross back where all things are considered. i'm cater level to remind you. we're discussing military accountability. i go back to david since i had unfortunately cut them out before we went to the break you know, day, but i think what are the most odious, most disgusting things i've seen the media ever do when it comes so war and it was during the trump administration, when, when trump ordered the missile attack on syria and then b, c news commented,

showing video footage of the missiles being launched from, from a ship's in the mediterranean. look at those beautiful missiles. okay. and for me, that disgusting, odious, just description puts it into a capsule. how the media gives a free pass to the military. because basically what it is, it is more theater. 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, the presenter explaining all of this how it works. which of course, is a switch in baton itself. go ahead david. right o 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 anyone i 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, 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 things that u. s. war deaths are a significant percentage of the desk in us 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 warren american history. i find it really, truly extraordinary. i watched his videos. i don't see what you're disagree, what, 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 loved to be lied to. it's not getting, you know, listened, be lot mistaken about that. they love to be lied to, so they don't have to take any responsibility. but there's 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 war is 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 here, 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 destroying civilian lives, destroying their economic livelihood, their natural resources, but it's called a war that's not a war. okay? 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 there. and 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 is 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 warrants or, 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 depth 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 these governments. so yes, there is a lot that needs to be exposed to bad. b u. s. policy on 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 as well. and thoroughly went with 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, where terry 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. ok. run out of time. i want to thank my guess and watch it in charlottesville, and i'm now and i want to thank our viewers for watching us here at ortiz. see you next time. remember crawford? rules ah ah. with a pool. ah, it's a book on my face, it go. but i still believe go, he did, who bought? i bought a dial to them. i look, i'm a preview, then you go quite buy that i know from politicians to athletes and movies don't to musicals. does it seems every big name in the world has been here this year,

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