ago this war is been over for 10 years or longer when, you know, when i thought there in 201112 i was the height of the u. s. true presence and we barely controlled anything but the ground we stood on. i'm for the withdrawal. i don't think that american meaningfully, you know, influence the outcomes in afghanistan and the whole thing is a tragedy. but more so for the people of afghanistan, i support the withdrawal. but we're, we're going out with our tail between our legs, which is surprising to people who weren't paying attention. i think so, the fact that the united states really has really is not achieved anything in afghanistan. and things are worse essentially then, and we found it or, or, and then we found that in february 2002 in combat operations were declared over. yeah, i mean, in this country, thousands of british troops wounded hundreds of thousands of afghans. obviously the, the army doesn't count the u. s. o u. k. home, he doesn't get african civilians. i mean, use the word imperial. there people are going to wonder. i mean, you form in iraq,

afghanistan, lots of this book. you taught to people who fight for the united states and you use the word imperial. that is not the rhetoric we hear from the hillary clinton's of this world and the liberal interventionists at all. it's trying to actually let countries govern themselves is the whole idea, right? i mean, the polite liberals and the polite imperialists as i'd call them, or the light interventionist they. they always come up with the rhetoric to justify these interventions. but 11 looks at the practical end of it and for better or worse my life, really, my adult life was spent at the practical pointy end of the sphere. it looked a lot like invasion, occupation, and sort of, you know, a brand of imperialism. no one likes the word empire in the united states. in fact, we're really proud. we just celebrated the fact, you know, were we were austin,

founded in opposition to the greatest empire in the world? no doubt with king george. we don't like empire, but one of the things are in the book and one of the things that i felt experientially that i had seen with my own eyes, was that the united states was ever always and continues to be an empire. just maybe not of the, you know, maritime late 1900 century european sore. but there's been all kinds of empires in history. and currently we're an empire of bases and economics and expeditionary interventions. and any mythology needs a, a found a founding myth origin. if you go through a couple of them, just tell me about why why we don't hear about james town. it's a peculiar thing. origin miss you would think would start at the beginning. the 1st permanent, you know, british settlement is a,

james found 1607. but that's not what we really celebrate in the united states. that's not origin. the origin meant this thanksgiving. it's pilgrims, it's buckles on black hats. it's this notion that the united states was founded as a haven for, you know, religious, you know, rights, you know, the right to practice religion. that's interesting that we choose that. i mean, of course it's a myth, massachusetts was actually a very sort of fundamentalist, you know, religious state. i mean, it was, there was really very little difference between the government and the church. you wouldn't want to live among these people. frankly. i mean, there, they bear a lot in resemblance to you know, life in puritan boston and life and really odd weren't completely different, right. we just don't like to think of it that way. but i think the reason we don't talk about jamestown is a few. well, 1st of all, that's where the slaves come. just a few years after the british con,

it's good there, but also the motives. it's really hard to like justify those motors if you're even remotely honest about it, which is that a bunch of aristocrats didn't too many chiefs didn't bring any farmers didn't bring any people who do actual work, a form, a corporate venture. right? like venture capitalism. go to virginia, looking for gold and resources and a northwest passage, maybe. and to kind of like, you know, challenge the spanish and they make terrible decisions. and they, you know, set up a settlement in a malarial swamp and almost all of them die. and one guy eats his wife the 1st winter because they're starving. and the whole thing is a mass, and it's sort of a capitalist enterprise and extract extract rewan. and so i don't think that that coheres with our origin met. but in many ways it sets the stage for what is the common american history, maybe more so than boston and plymouth rock and all that. and you see,

paradise between i say, ash and this puritan, true origin. well, they use a lot of the same language. i mean, in the scale of killing someone say isn't the same, but, but is it not? i mean, we're talking about folks who in the mystic massacre, you know, surround a wooden village in, in what's now connecticut, right? where julia roberts movie took place, right? mystic pizza and you know, they, they burn alive, bayonet and shoe taking no quarter women, children, old people, most of the warriors are kind of gotten away. this is just one incident. and the language that they use, i mean ronald reagan and every politician says, right, whether it's hillary clinton or you are brock o'bonham. they love this city on a hill speech. lashaun winthrop. right us, you know, on the boat off shore. he says, we shall be as a city upon a hill. well, no one ever mentioned what he says after that in the speech. it basically says that we're a new israel and that with the strength,

i'm paraphrasing with the strength of god behind us. we should be able to smoke 10 of our enemies for each man. this is a subtler colonial enterprise to not necessarily civilized the heathen, but probably to exterminate and the language of creating they want it to create a christian fate. in a new land, i mean this is, this is not very different language. i mean it's, i'm being purposely provocative and there are differences. but i think if we don't look at the parallels, we're not looking at ourselves. and if we don't look at ourselves, we're never really going to be able to make the progress to this, you know, you know, aspirational republic of ours. no one to the us had such a great time finding. what would become al guy that would you had the and is now so nice for the taliban? i don't know. but when you are saying this at west point, to military recruits and office of material want to their faces even show what expressions do they show when you talk like that to them? well, it depended on the students. i would say that overall,

it would probably surprise for us to know how am animal so many my students were to, you know, this, this actual history. i mean, it's factual. i wasn't making anything up, but you know, obviously anyone puts a slant on, it has a certain kind of analysis they're coming from. mine was definitely on the radical and, but i wasn't the only instructor. they are the only office they're teaching that way. my boss was the students were a little more minimal to new to it than you might think. one of the reasons is because i was just out of afghanistan, and most of my fellow officers teaching there were just out of iraq or afghanistan, usually multiple tours. they look up to you, there's a certain rank structure, so even if you're making them uncomfortable, they're little less likely to challenge. the 2nd one is if you teach well and you and you sort of demonstrate that you care for the students that they may start to listen after a while. in the beginning of the semester, there was a lot of confusion. and throughout the semester, this is very demonstrative of the demographics of america regional. it's

a huge country. it's really in many countries in many ways, like 7 nations according one book goes really. but the southern cadets, the cats from the deep south, especially the caps from texas and the cadets from the mountain west, were much more skeptical of this narrative and gave a little more push back. especially on certain lessons the alamo, the civil war, the, the vietnam war. these were the touchstones that they pushed back, most of which i think is kind of illustrative of what still resonates with americans. yeah, and i should just say before anyone, things is told usa matching british history and the history i was taught about britain, you know, to a degree all countries have to create a kind of mythology. you mentioned vietnam in the book. you claim that nicks and use the initial circumstances that exacerbated tension in vietnam to be elected. oh, absolutely. you know, nixon does a few things to get elected. first of all,

he plays on the culture wars. he sort of plays to this what he calls the silent majority, the white backlash against the civil rights movement, the white working class backlash against what was perceived as like a privileged college kid, anti war movement. even though that's a bit of a mythology too. and also, you know, he literally sense kissinger, right? one of the great villains of american history that, you know, hillary clinton looks up to right, is fascinating. or johnson over here will talk as well. that, of course, very reach the middle of kissinger, the murder of hundreds, thousands. but, you know, kissinger is sent to spike. the peace talks basically that, you know, johnson is kind of working on and that are ongoing because he tells them essentially, you know, tells the south vietnamese leadership. don't make a deal, don't agree to anything because a tougher president's coming in and you'll get a better deal with us. i mean, that's trees and, and a lot of ways. i mean,

this guy isn't even president yet. and look, this was, this was business as usual. i mean, it was an indicator of what was to come for next. and obviously with this expansion of corrupt, federal and executive power. but absolutely that, i mean, the vietnam war were still fighting the vietnam war to murder politics today, largely. ok. i mean, obviously some people they make, some is progressive on some elements of welfare to a fan is yeah, i mean, who is this vocal minority in d. c. a policy makers. that if you advance me is after 911 main policies that we now see the results of in libya in syria. that's kind of done in iraq. you know, i think it's, there's 2 strands 2 or 2 bipartisan strands. there's the, like the neo imperial neoconservatives, who believed that the he is for the executive branch season rumsfeld, the chinese, the will forces. these are idealogues, more so than bush himself,

who believe that the executive branch should be able to basically wage war and assert american hedge in many unilaterally. and that after vietnam, congress got too powerful. the american people got too hesitant about using force. this is a whole vietnam syndrome, and that's the problem if you, on shackle the presidency and do what needs to be done, the reale polity crowd, than you know, than will when course they were wrong. but then there's also liberal interventionists, which in some ways has been a stronger strand of american sort of imperialism. this is the wilsonian. this is the sort of civilized the world spread democracy and the free market along the way, of course. and that's like the samantha powers and the hillary clinton's and to large extent, jo. bye. know, he's been better on afghanistan throughout his career. but backing all of this is a professional class of things, tanker analyst policy makers awaiting the wings and advise professionally the d. c

. policy makers and of course that's all funded along. ready with the politicians, by what eisenhower warned about in his farewell address, which is the war industries, a sprawling military industrial complex that profits from war that profits no one else. not the american soldiers under my commander, died for $30000.00 a year. and not the people living on $2.00 a day. we drop our bonds upon us. i think that's really the cruel next. that has proven a formula for forever war major. any session of helping them more of the true history of the united states. after this break ah, join me every thursday on the alex simon, sure. and i'll be speaking to guess in the world politics. sport, business. i'm show business. i'll see you then. mm.

what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy confrontation, let it be an arms race is on offense. very dramatic development only and get into this. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very difficult time to sit down and talk. now we have e cigarettes. i just heard that it was a healthy alternative to cigarettes, and do we trust tobacco companies with their message that these new products are actually going to reduce? these are making the tobacco it ah, welcome back. i'm still here with retired us army officer major denny session will

sort of the true history of the united states. i mean, some said that in the obituaries of donald rumsfeld, they were far too kind to him. i mean, what did you make of the? i mean, millions, tens of millions were killed when you know displaced in these was, oh, it was obscene. i mean the, the obituaries were largely obscene. it's one thing to dance on. somebody was great . but when that person created countless graves masquerades, i think we need tell the truth about and the truth is dollars, shelves, role in american vault, which is highly nefarious. that was long term. mean he's like the youngest and oldest secretary defense. i believe he started part slice. is it cheaper? stafford, gerald ford. she's been fighting to on shackle the presidency as i was mentioning earlier, throughout his whole career. i mean, dick cheney is his protege, not the other way around. people forget that. he represents a strand of american conservatism that when hyper imperialist in the most old

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

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

i imagine, is price in the stalls for that time. but the reality is, in actuality, that's true sometimes. but the dark side of it is and the stronger side is that things are lost, that it justifies the government grabbing more power that never gives back. and it gives an excuse to sort of pull away the rights, the liberties that any democracy is built on. and i think that's the blow back of war and it's multifaceted, and that's why i say, you know, empires and decline behave badly. and empires always come home. this is historically and philosophically just factual. again, the idea that you are teaching recruits at west point is quite amazing. i mean, the wiki leaks uncovered so many cables that arguably support pieces in the later part of this book. because obviously we can expose back a number of years decades and, and julian isn't just being tortured here in london,

according to the united nations. you're safely walking around the streets of the united states. yeah, well i mean, what you say about west point and teaching it there, i think is important. i mean, i say in the prologue of this book, i was on paper, a highly regarded officer, right? fairly high regarded, i had good scores, i done went to west point and a good combat record. so i was a prime candidate to go back and teach, which is pretty selective thing. but what they can't measure is that i just come out of 2 wars. i no longer believe that i spend all my time in those wars and after ending grad school studying the back story to this. and at the point when i got to west point to teach, i felt it would be literally obscene. grotesque not to tell the truth, not to bash america, i tell a lot of great stories about a lot of great americans, right and, and, and, and about the spirit and the potential of this country. however, if i'm not telling the god honest truth,

warts and all to the people who are signed up 18 years old to fight and die for said country, which is all based on back story and legacy to manage drives where we're at. that would be literally, i thought of, see, not everyone on the faculty agreed, but a surprising number did it. it was a huge just, it's not just you believe the war is a or point or then they're not effective. it was to reason president and joe biden, obviously, pulling the troops out, believe it or obama maybe did believe because he expanded the number of always been donald trump, who you do say was out of step with the historical background here. although then failed to follow through you know, trump has been, it was a fascinating sort of a, you know, element in american politics. but even also in my own sort of dissenting background, i started writing articles and my 1st book, while i was on active duty, i was even under investigation. it was, it was, it was

a little bit of drama. but before from selection, all of my, you know, hate mail and trolling was from the right. and it was the stuff you expect, right? you hate america, you know, to pay for your trade or all of this, right? but after trump selection, if i said even this and i attacked the guy all the time, are criticizing possibly. but if i said anything to say, you know, hey, look, but this rhetoric of his makes sense, or this decision on somalia makes sense all almost overnight. my sort of, you know, detractors shifted to the establishment left, right, the mainstream democrats. and i think that that is somewhat instructed to trump for his litany of flaws. was a bit different on foreign policy. and occasionally, whether he followed through or not would say some uncomfortable truths, that polite liberals and the polite lincoln project. conservatives wouldn't say. and that really upset the establishment,

which is why they're more angry with him than george w bush, who has millions of bodies on his hands. i mean only heroes you speak of. i don't know if you were to talk about eugene debs. why. why has there been no socialist present joy, although i should say when he signed his? obviously we can, leaks revealed how the d n c tried to destroy his candidacy is a socialist and the only became president. so, you know, eugene debs is one of the dissenting heroes that i try to highlight throughout the book. and some of them people have heard of like, you know, john quincy adams and abraham lincoln who were and the mexican american war. but eugene deb stands out because he was, you know, for time candidate for president under the socialist party, gets about a 1000000 votes in 1912 and almost the same in 1920. he runs from federal prison in 1920 and his campaign button. se for president convict, you know, 9372 or whatever. i mean, it was kind of incredible. why though, is that the socialist moment until bernie sanders obviously because bernie sanders,

one of his early projects, was a documentary about eugene debs, which i think is instructing. but why? well, the united states has this hardy frontier culture. this idea you can always flee west and remake yourself even though that's a bootstrap's mythology. we have the ethnic and racial divides. the hyper capitalist class was always able to divide the working class against itself, either racially or ethnically or regionally. and then there was a sustained effort by the government to suppress socialism here. so i think there's a lot of reasons why we didn't develop a sort of left wing like europe did. eugene debs low is one of those important forgotten figures because he, he's e 5 class warfare. but he does on a democratic ways of democratic socialist. he speaks a lot like a christian actually, even though he's not one, he respects religion and you know, when he sentenced the federal prison for opposing the draft and giving a speech under sedition act during world war one,

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

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

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

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

you know, centralized evil. right? the person pulling the strings over the chaos and anarchy of contingency. but that's the world we live in. and it's an inherently grey one, and i thought that people should read about that world that say for one of your favorite shows of the last season, we'll be back on wednesday, the 12th of january. but until then stay safe. and you can watch all our interviews by subscribing to our youtube channel and falling us on all our social media. ah, water officers are facing increasingly dangerous environment. we are seeing a growing debate about so called warrior cops. the term that i've heard in the militarization of police this is an ama vehicle we acquired through the 1033 program and very free program and government program that follows military property that if it allows you to local law enforcement with building an army over here and

i can't believe people, i see the thing, an agency on a camping a tammy, because they can appeal in a hand. you have to deal with your higher practice, who you putting in a uniform because a badge is a powerful thing, is sometimes like money in play trick people mind. they think that the bad news is that the going very bad. johns are coming good. have jobs secure, isn't world desperately need to have with you know, everybody is concerned about the coin being upon his game, but in fact, that's the only thing out there. there's not a montes game, it's an open source project built by volunteers. it's not a policy, but there are a lot of policies out there. july, an annual festival in st. petersburg dedicated to dust i epsky. ah,

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