ok joining me on the line now is investigative journalist and author david swanson i welcome david. clarke is what's the explanation for this is bizarre to think you would have troops around the world and not know exactly how many is this plausible deniability if you don't know how many then you say well we don't know. well i think there are people within the u.s. military who in each individual case know how many whether anyone knows the total worldwide or for the collection of the largest current wars i don't know but certainly it's not available to the public in a clear manner and we're obliged to learn from overseas reporters from journalists on the scene where the wars are happening how many u.s. troops are there as well as what we've been obliged to learn in that same way for years how much bombing is going on by both of those measurements trump increased most of the wars he inherited and then stopped reporting the information and in some cases clearly has continued to escalate or maintain levels of troops and bomb strikes well talking about his opposition to war and being rep

right earlier i was joined by journalist blogger and author of the new book peace all my back david swanson to discuss the controversy surrounding trump's pardons and the united states hypocrisy on all things war crimes take a listen. well he said he wants to give soldiers going forward.

right earlier i was joined by journalist blogger and author of the new book peace all my back david swanson to discuss the controversy surrounding trump pardons and the united states hypocrisy on all things war crimes take a listen. well he said he wants to give soldiers going forward a sense of confidence parrot lee confidence that they can shoot civilians that they can kill prisoners and these are the these are the crimes killing civilians without the use of a drone right if you if you're a president and you kill a bunch of civilians with a missile from a drone there's no prosecution but if you do it with a gun then very occasionally there is a prosecution and i think trump is stating quite clearly that's an acceptable parts of the war and in fact i would point out that it's the majority of what these wars consist of civilians are the vast majority of the victims so that the problem is on the one hand that the higher ups and the vast majority of participants in these wars are not being prosecuted. but when a few people are trump is saying we won't have that we will have confidence that yo