and mr. action was no different than the bush administration, seeing that the escalation of that war, which was a massive escalation of the war member when brock obama comes in the office. there's about 3035000 american troops in afghanistan about equivalent number of contractors and about 15000 nato troops. by 18 months later there is a quarter 1000000 man, western army composed of us troops, data troops, and contractors in afghanistan. so it was a mass of escalation of the war, seeing that, that was just going to fuel the insurgency, give reason for the taliban, allow them to have that credibility as a national liberation army, which most afghans wouldn't agree with. but when you put a gun to their head and say, hey, let's take the foreigners or pick the taliban. unfortunately, main parts of afghanistan, they choose a tab as a seeing all those understanding it, but then realizing that it was not at all different than our ok. right? knowing where i was, uh, that was uh at my point where i said i have to leave this and i did, and resigned in protest. and, you know, since then have gone to work with

a lot of great people, including yourself, with tremendous professionals, people who love their country and who speak out against the wars against the machinations of, of a foreign policy a cobble, basically that's dictated by mega mania and read right, and we do this because we love our country and we don't want to see it committing the citizens that it has committed for so long. what was the fallout like for you when you made your decision? you you resigned and then went public with your objection to us policy? i know in the whistleblower community of course and you were you were hailed as a hero. what was it like for you on your former colleagues, colleagues, did you get any support? and i got a lot of support actually i had a tremendous amount of support from my, my state department colleagues at the time. so i was involved with problems with the state department in afghanistan and my colleagues who were in the other more

touring provinces. okay. i understand well, agree with medium bassett or, and we actually had a deputy ambassador and cobble as well. they agree with me, the deputy ambassador said to me when i was resigned and you know, i have, i have children that are military age and i would not allow them to serve here in afghanistan. this was not worth it. you know the bad bachelor ichenberry re with be a basset or holbrook who is the president special representative for afghanistan. pakistan said he agree with me. you know, they gave, they gave the president my resignation letter in the present and read it and, you know, mean, so there was the, in, among my colleagues from the marine corps, including uh, you know, men who were in afghanistan. nothing but support where i receive pushed back from, was from the senior levels of the pentagon leadership and the senior levels of the state department leadership. um, you know, i, i could tell you that one of the things, the pentagon did through central command, which general day with the trash has been charged with the time they hire as cheated communications firm to discredit me. you know, and this is, you know,

so when you have a whistle blower, someone who's speaking out against, you know, they established the authority that established the authority uses all the resources, it has to cost them. so as i was speaking out and i was getting a lot of media attention, i was getting on cnn and i was being interviewed by, you know, big newspapers and so on, so forth. the seat of communication firm hire by general, betray us would bad mouth me. and then they've got to the point where they would say things such as, look, if you're a type of journalist, your type of media organization that wants to work with someone like mount, how we don't think you're the type of organization that we want to work with. so basically, uh too many, and i had this happen where producers, booker tankers, would show me these documents, where the pentagon was se to the media organizations. you can either talk to this guy who opposes the war, or you can go on helicopter rides with our generals. next time you come out and then we're speaking with state and defense department was the blower. matt ho about his decision to resign from the us government in protest of the wars in iraq and

afghanistan. we're going to take a short break. stay tuned for more of our conversation. we'll be right back. 2 2 2 the, [000:00:00;00]

the, the welcome back to the whistle blowers, i'm john curry onto we're speaking with was the blower. matt ho about his decision to resign from government service in protest of the rock and afghanistan wars. not thanks again for being with us. hey, thanks john. for help me with you. glad to have you, matt. you've paid a higher price for your experience, and most whistle blowers have. besides the professional fall out for resigning your position, you suffered personally, you've spoken very publicly about p t. s. the about depression and moral injury for example. those are 3 things that i was also diagnosed with in the past. tell us about your experience and how you dealt with these challenges and they really are difficult challenges. they are, they are, and i of course i have to say, you know, my, my, uh uh,

a punishment was nothing compared to yours and you went to prison for speaking the truth. so humbled to have you say that to me, i'm just glad to see the, you know, so you do you have post traumatic stress disorder? you have, i have dramatic brain injury and more on injury. and i can tell you the, the dramatic brain injury, which comes from explosive related blast. and this is something people becoming more familiar with, basically because of the body armor, vehicle armor we had in the rock and ask in wars, we survive, things walked away from explosions. that in any previous were, would have killed us. and this is why you see such as very high numbers of, of, of, of brain injuries. we, we have, i have marines in my command to, on a 8 month deployment, 7, a 8 month deployment. would have 10 explosions, hit their vehicles, you know, and they would walk away with dust ourselves off. and then similar but different to what the football players and boxers and rugby players go through. there is

a brain injury that develops over time as a latency to it. so for me, the symptoms of my brain injury didn't really manifest until around 20142015 or so . and but i can tell you as the bill of lading is, that was as painful as that was and manifested through just just terrible migraines . that would last as long as 18 hours of stream fatigue, a cognitive dysfunction where i couldn't use a computer, i, you know, as bad as that was, that was nothing compared to the moral injury. that was nothing compared to that regret that deal. that shame, you know, his years i went uh wanting to kill myself, planning to kill myself slowly trying to do it throughout the whole, but also to always having a plan in place and coming close to carrying out that plan and a number of times to kill myself, is that how to do with the guilt, the regret, the shame of taking pork and things in iraq?

ah, ah, that you know to this day, i won't speak about that. so there are, there are, after so invisible wounds that have always been with warriors of every conflict. going back we noticed like a shakespeare wrote about this, the greeks and the romans wrote about this. homer writes about this in the early, it means this idea that there is a moral component toward devastation and ruinous aspect to the soul that comes from war is something that is not on known is something that should be surprising, surprised nobody. and that exists in every generation that goes to war, regardless of how good or bad the war is. possibly it's, there's more of extent to this say in a war like a rock or vietnam where you don't understand the purposes where there are so many allies behind the war that it's quote bad war. but certainly we know that in the

good moore's united states has had and put good quotes. right. but the civil war world war to the veterans from those wars carried moral injury with them at all levels where they were killing themselves at high high rates. similar to save veterans, so this is not anything that is new or unique to my generation. our generation of combat veterans. this is something that has always been with combat veterans as a consequence of war. this invisible wound because more does kill your soul. yes, it cause you 2 things, no matter how you justify it, is simply on justifiable and look. i think the best way understand is, is that if killing came naturally to human beings, the united states army, united states marine corps, would not spend millions and millions of dollars training recruits to kill. you know, if you're a young man, you joined the marine corps. are you going into the infantry? i should say, woman now, because when they can go on the imagery as well, you will spend 13 weeks and recruit training. then you'll go to advanced infantry training,

which i believe now is about 10 weeks long. then you will go to your unit and you will spend the rest of your time on your contract. but the marine corps training the kill because that's what they have to do. to condition you to get to the point where you can go across the planet and kill a stranger in their homeland problem is when you come back, you're not dream washer condition. so when you come back, that conditioning where's off. and that's where the moral injury start to set it. and as you have to then rectify, you have to deal with what you took part in what that means to who you believe yourself to be as a person. this is without transportation comes in met. you do a great deal of work now with groups like veterans for peace, veterans veteran intelligence professionals for saturday, the world beyond war. some of the more important piece groups here in the united states. what kind of reception have you had among former colleagues in government regarding the work that you're doing now toward piece you know,

it's really well accepted with the exception of those who have gone into the military industrial complex. the people have gone to work for defense, contractors, weapons manufacturers. and even then among them there is uh, almost in the barrack nature a lot of time and what they do when they will offer the site, the golden handcuffs, right. they will say i got 3 kids were going to college soon and what, what, you know, what, what else could i do? you know, i came out of the marine corps, i came out of the navy and came out of the army. you know, what was i supposed to do this was, this was an opportunity for me to continue to provide for my family to the golden hancocks are very real. but i generally, um, you know, and it's hard to for me to is to think of a time where somebody has told me off because i'm now a peacenik or whatever. uh, so it's rare that that happens. and usually it comes with somebody who's still attached to the military. they're still in the pentagon, they're there, they've got a, a, an eagle or stars on their shoulder as you know,

or they work for the defense industry. so i think most people, it, we know there's a calling, we know that the majority of veterans of the rock and ask in words, think those words were a mistake, think they should not have been slot. a higher percentage. veterans think that been to the general population, the general population by ward my why margin believes that so what do you think you can see, see that those of us who went there and saw and experienced it took part in it. and i think a lot of people don't speak out because there is a shame there is regret, but there's also too, of a false patriotism, a junior wisdom that exists in this country that does not allow or descent that does not allow for patriotic uh, descent uh you know, you go to a football game, you go to a hockey game and you know that the spectacle, the, the jingle isn't that exist there. but it makes people feel as if they can't question. and i think that's a lot of what we do with our work. you know, i work with an organization called eisenhower media network. and that's

a lot of what we try and do is trying to educate people about war trying to show that there are people who took part, who are military veterans who believe that we should be conducting war making throughout the globe, stopping around with 800000800 base is around the world, you know that we should have some restraint and we should be investing in our country as opposed to conducting military ventures across the globe. i think you're absolutely right. more recently, you are a candidate for office as the green parties nominee for the united states senate from the state of north carolina in 2020, the democrats worked hard to keep you off the ballot. you were a threat to them apparently, but you went to court and you one. tell us about that experience. what was it that the democrats were so afraid of? see, there is an entitlement that both of the major political parties possess that they feel they own the process. and they've gone to great lengths over the decades to ensure that. and we see that width about access laws that make it very difficult

for independent or 3rd party candidates to get on to the ballot as well as gerrymandering. yeah. which makes it so that way, you know, and you see this where the parties were clued pro public. i just had a great story about jim cliburn, the venerated democratic congressman from south carolina to colluded with the republican party, to make sure that his seat was protected. he was willing to give the republican some more c at the disenfranchised black voters. as long as he was taken care of it, i think that's what you see there's, there's a greed, there's an entitlement within the party is that also to a desire to protect their donor base. so for us, we got on about we got all the signature that we needed. we far surpassed the number that we needed actually. and then we were hit with allegations of corruption of fraud is they said we turned in thousands of ford signatures, which we did not to. and but we had to go to court because they have the lawyers, they have the money. they know they,

this is what they do. they know how to put in all these obstacles, almost as if, as soon as we turned in our signatures to get on the ballot, they just went to the playbook. and okay, this is what we do next. and we file a lawsuit. we file complaints with the state board of elections. we do a, b, c, d, and try and exhaust up. unfortunately, we were able to not be exhausted. we are able to persevere, hold on how to a great attorney who was pro bono otherwise we wouldn't been able to do it cuz we couldn't afford to do so. and we were able to stay on the ballot and we won twice. we one in the federal court, the one in federal appeals. courtney was the one state court. so it was very serious and in the threat of what i mean, i, this was, i was running in the us senate raise one was to try and get about the goals were to try and get valid access, try to trying 3 independent political parties that was one of the goals, but then the other goals were to, to basically, you know, try and get certain issues into the race, medicare for all them rank control, especially as well as ending the war on drugs. because those are things dominate

life and north carolina. and so, you know, it's, are, we were never a threat. we would never would have been a threat. i raise the most amount of money for any non democratic or republican candidate in the country last year, as one told. and i raised $200000.00. that's nothing, you know, in my race and my senate raised a 2 major candidates, democrat, republican, they raised a $100000000.00. so we were never going to be a threat. but what it was is that we were stepping into their turf. we were, we were broaching on, we were, we were encroaching on their entitlement. how dare we that type of thing. and so they thought the squash was, they also know that they're there, right. and they know they're corrupt and they're afraid of, of anyone saying anything that might insult or hurt their donors, such as advocate reg, control or for medicare for all you know, in, in a major race. i would like to thank our guest, matthew ho for joining us today and for sharing his experience in whistle blowing and thank you to our viewers for watching. sometimes the most profound sentiments

are the simplest. my husband got the once told us to observe good faith and justice toward all cultivate peace and harmony. with all i appeal for a cessation of hostilities. he said, not because you are too exhausted to fight, but because war is bad and its essence, we will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. gundy was right, of course, even if we haven't yet learned our lesson. john kerry, uncle, you've been watching the whistle blowers. thanks again for joining us until next time. 2 2 2 the more expensive and i'm here to plan with you whatever you do,

you do not watch my new show search like why watch something that's so different whitelisted opinions that he won't get anywhere else. welcome to please. as you have the state department, the c, i a weapons makers, multi 1000000000 dollar corporations, choose your fax for you. go ahead, change and whatever you do. don't my show stay main street because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called stretching time, but again, it's not. we don't want to watch it because it might just change the way you the, at the end of the 19th century, africa was divided between european empires, which mercilessly a press the indigenous population. modern day tends and he used to be

a german colony. the germans levied heavy taxes on local drives, and use them as free labor on cotton plantations. professions protest turned into an uprising against the colonial list under the banner of the religious movement of the magazine. margie, it was led by a man named kinsey, could do the rebels use guerrilla tactics because they did not have the power to grasp the german army in head on confrontation. but the germans were not able to suppress the resistance of the guerrillas either. so the invaders decided to starve that population to one of the commanders of the german troops kept in wagon. heim wrote only anger and one can lead to final submission. military actions alone will remain more or less a drop in the ocean. the blasphemous land works. the invaders burned villages and fields. in 2 years,

germany deliberately starved up to 300000 people did that later. the monstrous experience of the 2nd right in tanzania was copied by the 3rd right, led by the nazis in order to extra pay, the peoples of europe. the rest of military repels keeps accounts of offensive insights on the front lines of dunbar. as the training presidents, those nato member states with a fresh appeal for both arms and munitions. also this our, the, the, both that the real thing kenya is a permanent opposition member leads a movements against the current governments economic policies. i mean, rising costs of living processes denounced us support for israel, outside of you and headquarters. bob,

palestine condemns us funds open and you embassy on is very old despite surgery, the heavy actions from jerusalem residents, the problem that come up with the american decision to move examples that contradicts american foreign policy, especially since moving the embassy and the 2 state solution to the, the, the us is the one encouraging the okay place to break international law and keeps the patient's state at both international law. the, this woman at past 7 pm on saturday evening. hey, in the russian capital mine is peter scott, on wherever you're joining us from. welcome to 30 minutes of news and analysis. we start off with our top story. this. our russian troops have repelled ukrainian attacks on the phone lines new. the city of bock much and the done yet beach and that's according to bushes defense ministry, the minute to release voltage of roof incense, nutrients come by positions, and pushing back against kias forces. but elsewhere in the bustle zones in the neighboring little guns, the general ukrainian assault shapes or reports as so it'd be no bridge or from the

photos of the senior correspondent broadcast the reports on the recent developments on the ground, the ukrainian soldier pots of the special forces squad, films, and the attempt to the tech, he'll know russian outpost. you run across and stick time to cover on the left and the cover, we move that way. it doesn't go according to plan. the attack is sponsored by russian troops. a machine gun opens up. an injury. injury. i'm injured the 55 last. so in the minutes, the anti you paid me in squad is killed. the speed you epitomizes, you pains disastrous defensive. across hundreds of kilometers. the scene,

but pete's head on attacks against fortified russian positions. the casualties are renewal of us, the men added. yeah, the americans supplied max pool with the vehicle, takes a direct heat, reportedly in stop are always your region over the past month. billions and billions of dollars worth of nato weapons and vehicles have but, and the financial stress is telling the conflict. this conflict has no military solution to say, i do not accept the provision of munition, especially if it is from the reserves of the old german army. because like you, i am the president and supreme commander, and i have clear responsibilities. no to weaken the defense capabilities of demo jerry nomics. he'll go to steve amongst native states. well, we are in this ease on the rise. now that the prospect have a quick ukrainian victory has been proven fantasy instead of fight. they're

starting to say, to wait for the key of is that acceptable? h needs guns that might the last piece that's been done, they should be able to. i'm sure that you in the european union and ukraine, europe should have common values, ukraine and nato should have common values and the more and it cannot be. otherwise . it is impossible to strike a balance or support to russia in this war. and why, why? because russia wants to destroy nato and europe, destroying the european union is their aim. do you understand? the lensky is determined to continue as long as the united states. and it's nate who allies keep sending arms and have you these should keep the war going. there are still millions of ukrainian men left to mobilize for the grind. no matter the losses. phone 321,

direct case, it's direct stages. but the question remains to the quick ministry victory who arguably victory a tool for ukraine is now a decent intent to use every prospect. and the more apparent that becomes the hard, the, it will be to maintain a united need to front more, i guess the of the, for me to guns region sticking with ukraine. the countries president volume is the landscape travel to, to kia on friday to meet his accounts about richard type one was in the final leg of his latest european for the conference. and you grain keeps bid financial membership on the black sea green deal dominated to the talks with the texas lead to expressing hope. there's lots of potential to fall in love. and you know, it's my heart to the black sea green initiative. we still have as many 33 1000000 tons of grain to those in need any yes, through the turkey straits,

which would expire on july. the 17th will be extended again. i believe that all sides would act with a sense of global responsibility for this purpose. most part there was a great deal and begin watching so much that has been discussed with the great deal security concerns regarding the black sea. and general nato ascension has been on the tables. but according to what the charges president said, he also said that the prisoner swap is on our agenda. it is amongst our top priority matters that are going to be discussed. so the level of the gu itchy, that remains there, is because of a number of reasons. firstly, these, the things that were discussed with the credit and presidents will be discussed with the russian president vladimir george. and he is expected to pay a visit to turkey later next month. and based on those meetings, we can have a better and clear understanding as to what the roadmap will be moving forward. however, i do want to emphasize

a little bit on the nature of ascension. i'll be at the kremlin, might not. well, come the nato and a section for ukraine. we also know how the target president operates. so although the church presidents at on kind of a general doesn't oppose ukraine joining nato. it also does not wants to strain ties with boss scouts. and based on how good it has essentially active in the past, we can also assume at least until this meeting takes place with the russian president that much of what on cut a says the should be taken with a grain of salt. this could also mean based on what charges channel this then experts have been discussing. is this meeting with the landscape and this potential meeting with waterman pollution in the upcoming month? and the 10 top piece talks, we do know that in order for ukraine to join major of the war or the calls like needs to come to an end. and that could be what is on, on cut his mind. the charges present has been adamant and has been very vocal about

bringing an end to the conflict and focusing on reconstruction, which was also a topic of discussion. in the meetings here is stumble. numerous figures have found themselves being canceled from speaking of the press that just stanford university . but that's not the case for members of ukraine's extremist, as all put solely in. we've been given the red carpet treatments in california find outs, how that's come to be by heading over to our websites oxy dot com, a must have protests against governments. economic policies inc, kenya has devolved into violence with police repeatedly using to a gas and even find warning cells to this. this crowds you, most people have taken to the streets across the country, protesting and you finance bill. the significantly raises the taxes, while the government believes the increase will help the feeling economy, people are complaining about skyrocketing prices and the cost of living. the demonstrations of being inspired by the sub sub process states and by july, the 7th, which ended

a controversial lead this long time been in the country. the will full of prime minister viola, i think is behind a petition circulating to impeached presence william root. so the opposition leader says made false campaign pharmacist and is responsible for the spike and the cost of living. the time for talking has already ended its action time. the constitution states that the common citizens have the authority to end this government through the kenyan citizens, can now to power to the rightly to serve in person. we all know the use tricks to

get into power. we're starting the process of taking power from them. while the canyon economy has faced an ongoing crisis and significance of poverty levels that have only west and recently due 2 payments, the countries made on public debt that's amounts to 67 percent of g d, p. the government's attempts to scale down spending all pods, but fiscal consolidation efforts that include the new policies type sites. the m. f has praise, read those governments for a prompt response to the economic hardship. the when it comes to live it will be was not the only place experiencing and rest with people gathering in mombasa, the 2nd largest city, we spoke to some of the local people about the ongoing situation and the opinions with all the rise to the products we protesting against the government, the economy is difficult, even paying rent is a problem. before going back home, i have to think because my child lost me when i got them to wait. when i come from