why it's because the good for the time action or that seeing welcome back to going underground, broadcasting all around the world. it's 2 years since the longest about war and us history ended with a cycle inside escape of fleeing us troops from afghanistan. today the us as involved in a war in your report, according to us and european officials in the new york times. ukraine has too many soldiers in the wrong places, with hundreds of thousands dead under biden's political opponents. judging negotiations, what's next? nato senior mentor for logistics to attend the general. ben hodges was commanding general of the us army in europe during the minutes agreements on ukraine. he

commanded the 100 and 1st evelyn in operation iraqi freedom and was the director of military operations and kind of afghanistan and he joins me now from frankfurt in germany. lieutenant general, thank you so much for coming on going underground. we've had assistant secretaries of state on national security advises presidents never come under of the entire us . so i mean, your of, i have to say, so let's just start with them. i don't know what you thought of the soul is bugging you, of times claiming its sources, told them from the us administration on your a p invalid that ukraine just has too many soldiers in the wrong places. that's why it's all going wrong. yeah, well i'm, i'm always annoyed with people from a 1000 miles away making commentary or judgments about technical situations of people who are actually on the ground in the fight, especially when they choose to be nameless. so i, i would pay no attention to the assessment. i trust the ukrainian general staff. yeah. you said before,

so you don't like those judge angles from thousands of miles away. what would you have done man on the cold as a video? cool. according to the times on the 10th of august 20 twenty's rate, general mark mealy the case. so tony rather can be your kind of counterparts of over the counter funds that need to come under of us. what was it in europe and the general christopher canolli, who is your successor and of course general's illusion? mt of what would you have said on the video? cool, then as to how to go forward without anything to secret. i know you've emphasized the importance of keeping information secret a lot of the time where a lot of i certainly would have told the chairman 1000000 admiral wreck and um, who uh the we would have never sent american or british soldiers into an attack like this without having already achieved full total air superior already. so criticisms of ukraine for maybe going a little bit slower than we'd all like without having given them the means to do it

. the way we would like is, i think of unjustified and, and frankly not very helpful. hello, but i think that the ukrainians have done a good job adapting to the situation on the ground. and we know from history no plan survives 1st contact, and the winner is usually the side is able to make the application most quickly. ukrainians have decided to focus on destroy and russian artillery, russian logistics. and that will eventually make it easier for them to finally get through these mind fails. i mean, how can you say that it's going well, if 14000000 they've left the country, there may be 400000 dead. that's a figure, the colonel mcgregor said don't talk a call since the interview. he of course, has a full event. you can advise that maybe a $100000.00 plus wounded, hundreds, surrendering tens of thousands of amputees. how is that going? well? well, if mcgregor is your source,

then our conversation is probably going to come to a close he's. he's been wrong from day 0 on all of this and he goes kremlin, talking points at every possible opportunity. there have not been 14000000 ukrainians leave the country there certainly have been. millions of russians have left a boarding, conscription avoiding mobilization. there is no doubt that ukraine has suffered many casualties without a doubt. nobody, nobody has that. and there are, i think, 4000000 ukrainian refugees that are, that have left ukraine to avoid what's happening in their country. but i think that russia actually has a bigger manpower problem then, does ukraine, you won't fill up a school bus with a number of russian soldiers that actually want to be in ukraine today. so you don't believe there are 300000 in reserve, in case the united states and just the fans. absolutely not. i mean, british intelligence just a few months ago said that they thought about 98 percent of russian forces were

committed in ukraine. so we've been hearing reports about huge russian forces being built up. i mean, i guess they're going to issue them wouldn't sticks. there is no equipment to give them. so no, i don't believe there are 3 of them. there's no, there's no equipment for the russian forces. why did the lensky fire huge traunches of the government then of a corruption? and among the conscription scandal, the officials responsible for conscription. we've seen videos of course, online of the or if it treat not to beat it out to the web browser, the not why, why would he not? i mean, they haven't been calls for ukraine. hey, you've gotta clean up your act. so he's doing exactly what you would expect, the leader of a liberal democratic government to do which is hold people accountable and to be transparent. he has, i think taking huge steps to try and change the culture and the perception of the culture of corruption inside ukraine. look and it's, it's not

a monastery there. that's for sure. but i think what they're doing, fighting for their survival is remarkable. and the u. s government and i suspect the, his majesty's government is the same on the equipment that is provided to ukraine. the accountability of all of these things is very, very strange, but assess the job of the officers that are deployed there to help make sure equipment goes to where it's supposed to go. so i might have great confidence and then we'll, we'll look into that further here in a moment. we have had xerox many on instruments with disability report about pentagon procurement as to what's happening regarding corruption, when you are intimately involved with the war and ukraine. because you supervise forces. i mean, tell me about that trip you made to key of in 2015, was it a optim in school? one had collapsed. i, i understand that you were there. what were you doing and you have, we have the mission, a us army, you're

a to help provide training for you. granting soldiers. they had a large training area at a place called you have a roof in western ukraine near the city of levine. our task was to turn that training area into a training center. something like what we have at home fails germany, for example, with cadre and, and to give me credit in battalions and eventually brigades a place where they could train and prepare before they deployed to what was then called the h e o, the terrorism operations on. so i was, i was in and out of ukraine, probably a dozen times during $1516.17. you don't think that was a violation of the men's accords. i mean, we, you're responsible for the troops of the 22nd of january 2015 that killed the wounded, 33 in a bus, shelving the 100 civilians who died in over russia. and don't bother us. you train

these people who killed all the civilians in don't the us. i think you're, that's quite a leap to say that add train them the ones who killed them for sure. i'm very proud of the job that we did with this several different battalions of ukrainian troops that cycled through the training center. i am not familiar with what unit might have committed that it, whether it was an accident or for whatever reason it happened. i don't know anything about huge supply to close that vehicle to grain. you don't think that that was a violation of immense one, which was from september. the 5th 2014 i had to administer to which is on the 12th of february 2015, wasn't the supplying of the kodak um vehicle because i understand you met with the us and the advocacy of on the same day. okay, i don't know where to close that. our vehicle is. i mean you don't, you don't think anything you were doing was in violation of minutes. could agreements absolutely not. mean, anything more, in what way we,

we were providing training and the average uh for ukrainian battalions and cycled through to improve their capabilities. i'm from having a hard time uh, following your all how this might have been a violation of any misc agreement. okay. because that gives the person ele, uh, carrier, and we now know from angular michael to then john slow that the minutes agreements are a way to um, and presume the train, the ukrainians ahead of conflict. so were you not an intrinsic part of that violation of the principles of mints, which is ratified of the un security council on the 15th of february, or even security council resolution g, g 02. and the way to get information from training is not a violation of minutes. uh, what they agreed to. and may i ask, of course, was to pull back. and i think the o. s. c,

the organization for security and cooperation in europe. when would tell you that about 90 percent of the ceasefire violations came from the russian side. so maybe you probably should should talk to them. but training and then of course the u. s. government made the decision to provide counter fire radar to the ukrainians during this period that happened during my time there and we helped train them and that was continuously frustrated that we could not get approval to provide javelin and to tank weapons to them. at least during the 1st 2 years of this and march 2015, you said there's direct russian military intervention, eastern ukraine. and then the german secret service said that just a few um vehicles. so why do you think the germans back then was saying about what you were saying and for the breedlove, supreme commander of nato forces us, you are being combined. they were saying, this is dangerous propaganda. then there are $40000.00 troops on the board. you

know why i'm asking these questions because i'm growing increasingly curious. i'm asking these questions because what it seems to be is that you were capitalizing this conflict. because why i know that's what you're saying. there were 40 bought of this. how does the german sequence of its being these a propaganda operation saying the russians were about to invade wind rush? it was, but it gets fades in the minutes agreements, which as we know from bank of america, we just deployed or yeah, there's 0 proof. their rush, it was putting any faith in the mask agreement or any proof that they were living up to the mask agreement. so i, i am having a hard time figuring out why you think i personally was helping to catalyze to this conflict. what actually happened? you can be sure that i was doing everything i could within my authority to help the training and soldiers be as well prepared as they could possibly be. i was at the

same time working with ukrainian general staff to encourage them to be more transparent with their defense budgets so that the writer could have oversight over defense spending the way we do in the us. any other western countries. i've visited multiple different ukrainian sites, industry sides of headquarters. i wanted them to be as ready as they could be. that was that was my task. did you meet people from the as of fatality, and now i had do not you met no one from the as a battalion because of course that would it being against the bipartisan amendment, boston has a representative. i representative joan connie is who outlawed holes aboard for the as a battalion for to nazi orientation. so if we go back to what was like to be the come on or the us army in your, do you not reflect on the fact that hundreds of thousands dying and your now is part of a legacy of failure by us forces in your what do they are about

a 100000 us forces the now the last time there was a war in europe. was it the destruction literally of yugoslavia. and that ended up as a nato, as a sort of training ground for those who would come at $911.00. we know it's only been lived in strips were in bozeman draining. so what is heavy or you have you been protecting national security for the united states in europe? so i would tell you that the war russians war against ukraine. now, here's what failed deterrence looks like. the failure of the west to react strongly after russia invaded georgia in 2008. the failure of the wes to enforce president obama's red line after russia supported the assad reading using chemical weapons against their own people. in syria and the failure of the west react with any real consequence after russia's invasion of ukraine in 2014. and

then you add that to the fact germany was still billed in north stream to as late as the been to 2021. and we looked a mess have with our withdraw from indiana, stand in our own domestic problems in the united states. after january the 6, you could almost imagine how the kremlin would assume that they would be able to roll over to cranium forces. and that there was no way the west, the united states, germany or any of us would be willing to stick together. but the way we have. so that's what i mean that failed the turns. the russians were pretty sure they could get away with this. and so i think if we failed, if we failed and demonstrating that we were going to help ukraine defend itself and hold russia accountable. so yes, well will accept that criticism digits and to the blinking themselves that the chemical attack was not a slam dunk man, he said it was a false flag. lieutenant general ben hodges, i'll stop you. the bullet from the former commanding general of us army and your

incarnate major of senior men, to of logistics after this by the american voters, are rarely interested in the world policy during election cycles. said the issue between maybe the exception this time around particularly um of g o p voters, much of the republican based as our w brain policy. they see it as vice for the welcome back to going underground. i'm still here with the right side. there's other general band hodges, the former commanding general of us army in europe incognito senior mental, full logistics. when you were uh before you became commander of the us army in europe at the, for a 100 and 1st and one is 2 years this week that the us left. i've gotten

a somewhat well is the 100 and 1st ambling because you know, people find it difficult to remember all these different divisions different. uh, i mean, is it complicated enough as the other day someone was saying, how many 4 star generals there are now in the u. s. military? so what is the 100 of available? so if you ever served in the 100 and 1st airborne division, of course, you know, because the student ever be confused about who and what it was, it is one of the 10 at the time, 10 divisions in the us army. a division typically has somewhere between 1516000 soldiers, and it was a brigade commander, a colonel in the 100 and 1st airborne division commander, the 1st brigade during the invasion of a rack in 2003. we ended up spending most of that 1st year of the war in north, in a wreck, south of south and most of us are 4 different times in that division. so you would

say that was my regiment. that was who i was most affiliated with. when i was in tactical units was, i was traveling time because, i mean, i remember, i mean the famous film scott face by brian depalma. you only made one feature film after that, which school redacted by the 100 for a sample. and steven bell green, who uh, who went into a housing memory, a rape to 14 year old go shorter in the head, then shorter assisted than show their parents dead in iraq. is that the 100 and for example, know we were never in my for the but well he saw him for the 100 revised terrible. ok. peyton, he may have at some point, but i'm certainly not during my time. what i am troubled about is that for 20 years and they're right and 20 years, they have to understand we never had a clearly defined objective except for the very 1st year in both of those places.

after that, none of the administration's republican or democrat was able to clearly articulate a clearly defined objective while we're here. and so you end up spending uh almost 2 decades and trains of dollars and lost thousands of wives of our own. not to mention everyone else that was killed or injured the wounded um without having accomplish what we originally set out to do because no president was able or willing to say, this is our objective. whatever and fan is everyone kind of says that kind of thing . now, when the 2 trillion dollars is left to be the us public money, but why did people lie in the $100.00 for us? they have one about what was happening in afghanistan. come major general jeffrey, show us a this is in the washington post which had 2000 documents linked to them. said in an interview we're making some steady progress in 20

o 8. while we now know secretly this 100 for us dabbling, combined with judge and the pleadings, the more us reinforcements seeing failure. and we know that mike flint, who is a ghost became national security adviser is being ongoing underground. questioned the entire policy while it was going on. what's wrong with the 100 revised gambling? that members of this division knew secretly was going wrong, were making public segments that were the opposite. that's stopping the united states public from understanding the where they were spending so much blood and treasure on ok, well you're, you're about as wrong as you can possibly be. this is not about the 101st airborne division. this is about all of us and across the us military is a 100 and 1st was only a small part of what was there. so i don't, i don't know where you get your conclusion from, but no, you know, major general jeffrey schlosser. yeah, of course i did and, but i can tell you also when i was in afghanistan, but 1st of all, when i was interact 2 times,

i feel very confident myself at the end that we had made progress because we were having to come up with metrics such as how many iraqi battalions have been created, how many schools have been built? have you know, how many elections have been held? because there was no clearly defined political objective. so the object is became something that could be measured. and so i felt very good about what we had done in the 1st year. i was there, and that was there again, year 3 of the warner, right, where i was responsible for operations all over iraq as a crown. and then in afghanistan, i was there from the summer of 2009 until the end of 2010. i really thought, you know, there was good. this was working. i mean, i really thought it was working. now obviously working as well as the ukrainians are working right now against the russians. okay, this is not even though it's, that's a ridiculous comparison is 2 completely different situations. what i'm trying to say is that the carol slows are not lying. all of us,

we're doing our best to try and meet the mission. whatever is protect atkins building, we're actually capacity find jobs for people, so they will do something other than build i indeed that's what we're trying to do . and i really felt when we left afghanistan can are specifically at the end of 2010. i thought this might actually work, obviously, as i look back on it and watch the con, the catastrophic end of the war in afghanistan. i realize that, you know, we're, i'm a little older and wiser. we never had an objective. no american taxpayer ever paid a penny for that because no president ever had to explain it to them and raised the taxes. and so most of the american population was disconnected from and we thought pakistan would be an hour. obviously they were not. and we were allowed tell a band to have safe haven there. and we also made a huge mistake and i was part of the problem. we built and ask in security force

that looked like us, which is great. as long as you have english logistics, overwhelming fire power and thousands or contractors and you take those away. this ask in security force, they look nothing like half getting culture and collapse and that's, that was a failure. there's, i can't, i can't walk away from that. as you said, it was great, but you use is great. we will name of all of the united states military is one that isn't actually the u. s. military better have assassination. you know, it was successful, killing lumber and congo. drawer he lived in dominican republic. i ended chile in the past, and then it's successful, a destabilizing in terms of cruise, but it is a military operations, actual military operations. it fails everywhere. it goes. i mean, we've already just named iraq afghanistan because libby areas in k o syria in k us and you know, he's being sold event with cuba, society 9. and there's

a high life expectancy and coup with them to the united states now. okay, i'm, i'm not sure what question you're, you're asking me is the u. s. military that you come on did in your useless and a waste of us public money and tax best money. while people die in hawaii may be a 1000 di didn't know why in the past few weeks, people of use policy in ohio still do not have clean drinking water at home. a 1000 a week, a shot dead into things. ok. none of that has anything to do with the u. s. military, but i can tell you this. the u. s. military exist to protect the united states and by being the highest level of readiness which every other army in the world 6 to emulate. you know, we have deterred russia, china and others from ever attacking the united states. that's our principal purpose, the power we perfect. you know, of course not the weights are you you think and you thought about this when you were combined in general. couple 100 of us. so i mean,

you're the china and the russia wanted to invade, invade the united states, or allies, the video tag. maybe you didn't, you didn't seriously think the rest of your china, when did you invade the united states? you're not listening because you don't want to russia. we know the soviet union, we know, had plans to attack european countries. they did a tag, you're being countries that were as in eastern europe and then we know they had plans to attack with i'm sure i'm talking after the full of the soviet union panel and expenditures going out obviously after us support for the majority and, and i've gotten this done, which moved into the 911 attacks which increased the pentagon budget, but you surely didn't think when you were in your to the united, the russia and china wanted to invade the united states. again, you're not listening for sure. i mean, yeah, so no,

did you think they want to do that? as they were going to tie said, they were going to attack our allies, that russia, without a doubt, would have if we were not prepared. and if they thought they could get away with it, they would have a tag into baltic countries. um they, they saved us all the time to talk about this all the time. they, they clearly have would have done more if the way i said not stuck together and stop them after their attack into ukraine. you know, of course, they would, china has demonstrated that they're willing to use all sorts of different means to threaten our allies in the, in the pacific region. and so if you think, if you can step back from this conspiracy theory of yours, you could imagine that the west in the philosophical way, the way us, which would include korea, south korea and japan for example, as well as astray a. this is weird. we're getting our sales organize the international rules based

order from which we evolved benefited since the end, right, or 2. but which china and russia both hate. i'm, we're, we're getting our sales organized to prevent them from damaging this order, which is the best chance to help give people a, some kind of a prospect and the liberal democratic societies to prosper. i think just one final question. i just say the rules based order in the global south, especially after the break. some it doesn't really play very well given there. on 53, guatemala, 50 for costa rica in the fifty's syria. 5657 egypt. 57 indian. easy, 58 bridges beyond the 53 north vietnam. 4373. allow 59 congo. 196-4165, brazil. 62. cuba. 59, bolivia. 65 on the list. so the rule is based door to that alone. that prison. guantanamo is. still there, when president obama wanted to close down, doesn't it show the president doesn't actually have the power? who was controlling use of the come on the of us forces in your

a really we know now they're leading presidential candidates r f k junior. and trump, of course, others opponents who want the ukraine war to wind down and have negotiations and stuff, the money. what do you think of? there's something in it that actually the u. s. military is good at this aspirations in these stabilize countries and r f k juniors as killed his father and his uncle, j f, k. they go to the stabilizing u. s. society and international society. and i'm not a conspiracy. there's everything i'm asking is just factual. yeah, and so you think that u. s. military has something to do with the death of john f. kennedy and robert the military industrial complex that eisenhower referred to. and i don't, i don't know where you get your questions from or how you doing your research. you know, when eisenhower said r k junior is not a leading candidate. donald trump has been indicted for time from about 71 or 91

different charges against him. i seriously doubt he's going to be president again. he certainly shouldn't be. but he was interested in that long list. you went through most of those were 60 or 70 years ago. so do we have a perfect record? of course not. but i would say this, i would put our soldiers up against russian soldiers, chinese soldiers. and you can count an american soldier, do everything they can to protect innocent people and protect what it is that we're supposed to be doing. so yeah, that kind of general then i'll just thank you. thanks for that training. that's over the show will be back on the side today to talk about the i m f and world bank and the shadow of bricks with world bank w h o level prepared this monitoring board economist message. i didn't go shoot until then keep in touch by roll that social media. if it's not sense it in your country and i do i channel going underground tv. hon. com. to watch new and old episodes of going underground. suzanne the

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[000:00:00;00] the hello and welcome to wells a part, and it's new foreign policy concepts signed into law the spring. russia for the 1st time officially defined itself as a distinct country civilization, but its own set of values and its own articulated vision of the world and the relation of different nations. what does it mean for the waiting, most co positions itself on the international stage, and perhaps even more important to me how it goes about building it's own life here