amy: with historian howard zinn. >> right. amy: freeing prisoners of war? >> yes, we brought home three flyers who had been captured and imprisoned. it was a kind of gesturere of peace in the midst of the war by the vietnamese, during the so-called tet holiday, which was traditionally a time of reunion of families, and so they wanted these f flyes to be reunited with their families. amy: in catonsville, was this the first time you were breaking the laws of the united states? >> no, i had been at the pentagon in 1967 -- i think it was in october. and a great number of us were arrested after a warning from mcnamara to disperse. and we spent a couple of weeks i in jail. it was rather r rough. and we did a fast. and we were in the d.c. jajail, which h was a very mixed lot. so i had had a little bit of a taste during that prior year. amy: you and your brother, phil berrigan, had an unusual relationship with secretary of d defense mcnamara. you actulyly talkedd to him, wrote to him, met him? >> yes. i met him at a social evening with the kennedys in about 1965 an

we spent almost every night, howard zinn and myself, in bomb shelters.t was quite an educated moment to cower under the bombs of your own country. there was a period of very intense reflection after that in february. three months later, i brother and seven others, we went to catonsville, maryland, and burned the draft files. i have seen what napalm did to children and the aged and anyone who's in the swath of fire in hanoi. seen what happened to just what priest who get in the way -- jesuit priests who get in the way in salvador in 1984. i met with the jesuits who were later murdered at the university there. i had tasted american courts and american prisons. i am trying to explain my first reaction. so it has come home at last. openeda week or so, i the hebrew bible to the book called the lamentations of jeremiah. and i found their a very powerful antidote to the poison that was running deep in the feigns of authority here -- veins of authority here. evidently, this bystander of the destruction of the holy city was giving us permission to go through an e

we were interviewing people like the late great historian howard zinn, saying we should be sending nurses and doctors into afghanistan, not soldiers. imagine how the world would respond differently. what happened on september 11th was horrific. 3000 people incinerated in an instant. we'll never know how many people died. those who go uncounted in life go uncounted in death. they are the undocumented workers and folks who lived in that area or worked there. brian: as we watch isis grow, you suggest that wasn't caused by us? i think it is -- many people physical including -- feel, including those like tony blair, you are seeing a growth of a force that came out of the destabilization. saddam hussein, there's no question he was a tyrant, but he was not a threat to the united states. how did he stay in power force so long, this tyrant who was oppressive to his own people? remember that handshake of donald rumsfeld and saddam hussein as the u.s. was providing financial support to sadaam hussein. my colleague did a great job showing this, showing that image. for a long time, the u.s. was suppor