While The Rest Of Us Die 1x4

1. - If you ask a group of randomly selected Americans

2. how secure do you feel today,

3. you might be surprised at the results.

4. People might say that they feel more confident

5. that we're being protected from terrorist attacks.

6. But are their lives as a whole more secure?

7. And the answer to that is likely no.

8. - I can't breath. I can't breath.

9. - Because security is more than just the protection

10. against terrorist attacks.

11. It's one's health.

12. It's once economic well-being, it's public safety.

13. All that comes together in how people view their own security.

14. - But the U. S. government views security

15. almost exclusively in terms of military might.

16. Spending around a trillion dollars a year

17. on a military they claim will shield Americans from harm.

18. The reality is that even using this narrow interpretation

19. of what it means to be safe,

20. the government is losing the battle.

21. - National security is the most basic level

22. is about keeping the American people safe,

23. but the threat to America's national security

24. is greater right now than any other time in our lifetime.

25. - For over 70 years, our leaders have told us

26. one thing under the bright lights.

27. - The protection of the lives and property of Americans

28. is the responsibility of all public officials.

29. - I care for trying.

30. - And it is my first duty

31. as president to protect the American people.

32. - We have it so well under control.

33. - But America's shadow government has spent trillions of dollars

34. on secret plans that serve one premise.

35. When the shit really hits the fan, we're on our own.

36. - I have nothing. Nothing.

37. - And while we are dying and increasingly senseless ways,

38. America's vast military machine never goes without.

39. October 2017, North West Africa.

40. American special forces are on patrol deep in the Niger desert.

41. - They were out on our patrol trying to find local affiliates

42. of ISIS near the Mali border when they were ambushed.

43. - The ambush was captured by a camera mounted

44. on one of the soldier's helmets.

45. - When I watch that video,

46. I think of the worst case scenario.

47. When you go through training at Fort Benning as an infantryman,

48. you think you'll never be left alone.

49. - By the time helicopters were able to come in

50. to rescue them, it was too late.

51. - We always say leave no man behind,

52. and that video is American troops left behind, left to die.

53. If we have drones and satellite eyes in space,

54. how do we let American troops get abandoned?

55. It's outrageous, and it's the epitome

56. of how little at times

57. our political leadership cares about the troops.

58. - Suddenly, that raised a lot of questions,

59. what the hell were the soldiers doing in Niger

60. in the first place?

61. - Do the American people know they're there

62. and have they been asked whether it's the right thing to do?

63. This is what happens when you have war without accountability.

64. - I would not at this time draw any particular conclusion

65. from the incident that happened yesterday.

66. I think that it does reflect the fact, though,

67. that we're having enormous success against the core

68. of the very heart of this movement.

69. - It really is a beautiful case of how the U. S. military really

70. is out there in the world

71. with very little knowledge back in the United States.

72. - In 2017, America was planning a mission to Mars.

73. The early phases of the space force

74. were being developed, and American sons

75. were being slaughtered in Niger by $50 AK-47s.

76. We have prioritized weapons systems and defense contractors

77. and the needs of corporate interests

78. over the needs of our sons

79. and daughters from Brooklyn, Detroit and L. A.

80. - Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate.

81. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

82. - Since the end of the Cold War,

83. the United States has been the world's undisputed superpower.

84. - And while it's true that Russia has an equivalent number

85. of nuclear weapons, they have a third world economy.

86. And while it is true that China has a competitive

87. economic strength of the United States,

88. it has a third world military.

89. And though they might be catching up,

90. the truth of the matter is that no country

91. is as powerful as the United States,

92. no country has the capacity to wage war in the way

93. that the United States wages it,

94. and the United States is the sole superpower.

95. - But it didn't come cheap.

96. The United States possesses the most powerful military force

97. ever assembled, and with 1.3 million

98. active duty troops, over a million reservists

99. and almost 800,000 full-time civilians,

100. The Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world.

101. To maintain this vast military arsenal,

102. the United States spends more on defense

103. than the combined total of the next 10 countries.

104. - Third of all, global military spending

105. is done by our government.

106. You know, the military budget is over $700 billion,

107. but if you add in the military work done

108. by like the Department of Energy and other parts

109. of the government, generally estimates

110. are that the real spending on military in the U. S.

111. every year is about $1.2 trillion,

112. enormous amounts of money.

113. - You might think that the end of the Cold War would lead to,

114. well, a peace, right?

115. The country's been at war for decades now.

116. It's no longer a war. It can reinvest in welfare,

117. in education and infrastructure and foreign aid.

118. There's all kinds of things it can buy with its peace dividend.

119. - And I remember the early 90s and the hopefulness.

120. I mean, you had the end of the Cold War,

121. you had the tearing down of the Berlin Wall,

122. and the world could really have gone in a different direction.

123. - All such hope for a peace dividend

124. ended when the government took the American people back to war.

125. - Well, after 9/11, President Bush

126. declared a war on terror.

127. - Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda,

128. but it does not end there.

129. It will not end until every terrorist group

130. of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.

131. - What followed was a militarization

132. both in the United States and abroad.

133. - After 9/11, President Bush declared a national emergency

134. and he called up reservists

135. and extended tours of duty and things like that,

136. basically amplifying the military forces

137. available to him for overseas deployment.

138. - In October 2001, the first salvo

139. in the American war on terror

140. was fired when U. S. forces attacked Afghanistan.

141. - So, you had a situation after 9/11

142. where you had a political leadership

143. that was largely dominated by chicken hawks,

144. people who had never served themselves

145. and viewed people like me

146. and others as pieces on a chessboard or a video game.

147. In my view, it's the ultimate disrespect to our country.

148. Our military is supposed to be used as a last resort

149. and it's not supposed to be abused.

150. - And the war on terror becomes a new justification

151. for the same old process,

152. which is shoveling vast amounts of money towards the military,

153. towards the spy agencies.

154. And that's great for Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing,

155. all those firms.

156. There was one famous conference call a couple of years ago

157. where a military contractor said,

158. you know, war is not good for people,

159. but man, it's really been great for business.

160. - Since 9/11, defense contractors

161. have seen their profits quadruple.

162. - The war on terror is basically a welfare program

163. for the military industrial complex,

164. the companies that provide the planes and the bombs

165. because it's incredibly profitable

166. for weapons manufacturers.

167. Just between 2016 and 2018,

168. military spending went up 10 percent.

169. - But many of the weapons systems that defense contractors supply

170. or have little practical use

171. to soldiers on the front lines in most conflicts.

172. - We continue to dump billions of dollars

173. in weapons systems like the F-35

174. that the military says they don't really need or don't want,

175. yet the defense contractors continue to push.

176. - Each F-35 fighter jet costs over $100 million.

177. And with the entire program estimated to cost U. S.

178. taxpayers over a trillion dollars,

179. it's the most expensive defense program ever.

180. - It continues to fail to meet its objectives,

181. it's delayed, it's over budget.

182. If a human being was as bad at their job as the F-35 was,

183. that person would be kicked out of the military a long time ago.

184. - The infrastructure, the education, the health care,

185. all of the things that we are failing in,

186. they suddenly become disposable

187. because we started asking Americans

188. to sacrifice their well-being in the face of an opponent.

189. - But who is that opponent and why does it keep changing

190. and why are we still fighting?

191. - The national emergency that was declared after 9/11

192. is still in place almost 20 years later

193. and is being used for purposes

194. that have nothing to do with 9/11.

195. - Osama bin Laden wanted to draw us into a protracted war,

196. to bleed us out, and George Bush fell for it.

197. And we're still being bled out today.

198. Osama bin Laden is long gone,

199. but his objectives have been accomplished.

200. His objectives continue to be furthered

201. because we're still bleeding our blood,

202. our treasure, our fabric of our country every single day.

203. It's what brings down empires,

204. and it's what could bring down America if we're not vigilant.

205. - The idea behind these military bases

206. is that they're there for security.

207. But you have to ask the question,

208. do they render the United States more secure?

209. I think you can see some reasons why hundreds of military bases

210. might actually be counterproductive.

211. - The major sin of war is that the United States

212. has been involved in the 21st century

213. are under the rubric of the global war on terrorism.

214. And how did that global war on terrorism start?

215. The start of it, you usually say, is 9/11,

216. when Al Qaeda flew planes into the World Trade Center

217. and into the Pentagon.

218. - Can't know where the explosion.

219. We heard there was a plane down here.

220. - I'm frustrated with the country as a whole.

221. As long as we're going to let people off the hook

222. in the Mid East, Iraq, Iran and places like that,

223. if we don't take a strong stand, this is going to continue.

224. - This provoked a lot of short rending in the United States.

225. Why do they hate us

226. is the question that a lot of people ask,

227. and the answer usually given,

228. including given by President Bush,

229. was they hate our freedoms, they hate our ideology.

230. But that way of narrating it misses

231. something really important,

232. which is Osama bin Laden's reason.

233. - Bin Laden's stated goal was clear and so was his rally cry.

234. He was able to use our presence in the Middle East

235. as a way to motivate people around the world to fight us.

236. It's something that most Americans can't understand.

237. People don't attack us because they hate our freedom.

238. They don't attack us even because they hate our president.

239. They attack us because they think we're wrong

240. and that they're right.

241. They view themselves as freedom fighters

242. against people who are imposing their will

243. over their sacred land and their sacred space.

244. - As part of the ongoing war on terror,

245. the U. S. government has put American troops

246. in harm's way across the globe.

247. - We talk about places like Afghanistan and Iraq often,

248. but we rarely talk about places like Syria or Somalia,

249. where there are regularly American troops in danger,

250. where our assets are being utilized.

251. What started out as the war on terror

252. has become the forever war,

253. America's never ending war with any number of enemies

254. in any number of places,

255. many of which Americans don't even know about,

256. can't pronounce or can't find on the map.

257. - There is an armed conflict that we have been in since 2001

258. when Congress passed the Authorization

259. for use of Military Force,

260. which authorized the president to use military force

261. against those who planned 9/11

262. and who aided and abetted the planners.

263. That really meant Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

264. - Allahu akbar!

265. - So it's become kind of a blank check for whatever

266. war making against terrorist organizations

267. any administration wants to engage in.

268. - In 2019, U. S. Special Operations Forces

269. were at some point in that year in more than 140 countries.

270. I mean, that's a majority of the countries on our planet.

271. - And so we end up in the situation

272. that we're in right now, where we're involved

273. in a seemingly endless war in countries

274. across the world that most Americans couldn't even name,

275. they wouldn't even be able to tell you all of the countries

276. in which we're at war right now.

277. - Whoo!

278. - The government's decision to deploy troops

279. is often only revealed by tragedy.

280. - When American troops died in Niger,

281. most Americans didn't know

282. we had American troops in Niger.

283. - And the degree to which many of the operations

284. that are happening are so secretive

285. that even the American people

286. are not aware who the enemy is that we're fighting.

287. That's really a shocking state of affairs.

288. - But it's not just a forever war,

289. it's an everywhere war.

290. America is constantly at war everywhere around the globe.

291. The sun never sets on our military operations

292. because we have people in so many places around the world.

293. - Key to our government's ability to wage war

294. anywhere in the world at any time

295. is a vast global network of military bases.

296. - So, the United States has fought the global war

297. on terrorism with military bases.

298. If you add up all the bases,

299. the foreign bases that the United States maintains,

300. we're talking about a number

301. roughly at 750.

302. So all the other countries in the world have roughly 40,

303. and the United States, it's 750.

304. - Some bases are so large, they resemble mini cities.

305. - Those outposts get developed to the point

306. where they feel like as a lot of people

307. call them little Americans.

308. You have Starbucks, you have McDonald's,

309. "Star Trek" fan clubs.

310. - This network of overseas U. S. military bases

311. dates back to the early days of the Cold War

312. when the United States was locked in a struggle

313. for global supremacy with the Soviet Union.

314. In 1962, the Cold War almost ended in Armageddon

315. when Soviet nuclear missiles were discovered in Cuba.

316. - I don't think the world has ever come closer

317. to a nuclear war than it did in the Cuban missile crisis.

318. The President of the United States had said

319. he was willing to go to war

320. to get the Soviet nuclear missiles out of Cuba.

321. - But the installation of Soviet missiles on the island

322. is only half the story.

323. - The part that we leave out

324. is that from Moscow's perspective,

325. the things started when the United States put missiles

326. in its bases in Turkey, pointed at the Soviet Union.

327. - The U. S. had moved nuclear missiles

328. into Turkey a year earlier,

329. allowing America to destroy major Russian cities in minutes.

330. - That, from Moscow's perspective,

331. was the provocation and the reason that the Soviets

332. retaliated by putting their missiles in Cuba.

333. - As the American people prepared for nuclear war in 1962,

334. they never knew the truth that their own government's decision

335. to place nukes in Turkey could have killed them.

336. - We call it the Cuban missile crisis.

337. I think we might as well call it that Turkish missile crisis.

338. - And while 60 years later these bases are seen as crucial

339. in fighting the war on terror,

340. they have enabled, perhaps even encouraged our leaders

341. to pursue a more reckless agenda that risks American lives.

342. - We have to talk about what these

343. military bases do to policy.

344. If you have 750 foreign military bases

345. spread around the world,

346. military solutions come really easily to hand.

347. - Iraq continues to flaunt its hostility toward America

348. and to support terror.

349. The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax and nerve gas

350. and nuclear weapons for over a decade.

351. - It's become so easy in the United States

352. to slip from this country is doing things

353. that we in Washington don't like to

354. something must be done.

355. - States like these and their terrorist

356. allies constitute an axis of evil,

357. arming to threaten the peace of the world.

358. The price of indifference would be catastrophic.

359. - Before it was even decided and discovered

360. who had carried out the attacks of September 11th,

361. you had members of the Bush administration

362. who were looking for an opportunity to get within Iraq

363. and exercise regime change from Saddam Hussein.

364. - My fellow citizens, at this hour,

365. American and coalition forces are in the early stages

366. of military operations to disarm Iraq,

367. to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.

368. - In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq,

369. the Bush administration had argued Saddam Hussein

370. possessed some of the world's most dangerous weapons,

371. even hinting he had nuclear weapons,

372. posing an existential threat to the United States.

373. - Simply stated, there is no doubt

374. that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.

375. - The pretext was the potential existence of weapons

376. of mass destruction.

377. In fact, administration knew full well there was not

378. any realistic threat that WMD could be used in any way

379. that would jeopardize the United States.

380. - While the American people were being sold a lie,

381. behind the scenes, plans were being made

382. to reshape the balance of power in the region

383. with seemingly little regard for the lives that would be lost.

384. - And Iraq was a country that had long been a thorn

385. in the side of the United States.

386. George W. Bush's father had led military hostilities

387. against Saddam Hussein after his army

388. invaded the neighboring country of Kuwait.

389. - It is not the United States against Iraq.

390. It is Iraq against the world.

391. - Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait in August 1990,

392. annexing the country and its vast oil reserves.

393. In response, the United States assembled

394. a massive international coalition

395. to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.

396. But while Saddam's armies were decimated,

397. he remained in power.

398. - In the late 1990s,

399. a small group of powerful Washington insiders

400. from a little known think tank began to call

401. for regime change in Iraq.

402. - So the Project for a New American Century

403. is this brain child of a group who continually call for America

404. to go out and find the next crusade,

405. to find the next big enemy

406. that America can take on and define itself in an opposite to.

407. Because of the first Persian Gulf War,

408. you see America understand that Saddam Hussein

409. is an evil figure.

410. They believe that he is the type of enemy

411. that the American people will accept.

412. So during the Clinton administration,

413. this group are constantly lobbying Bill Clinton

414. to fight Iraq and they keep telling him

415. this is the next big move

416. in order to secure American security and American power.

417. - But while the inside has failed to convince Clinton to invade,

418. they found a willing partner in President George W. Bush.

419. - Before it was even decided and discovered

420. who had carried out the attacks of September 11th,

421. you had members of the Bush administration

422. who were looking for an opportunity to get within Iraq

423. and exercise regime change from Saddam Hussein.

424. - Now, it's worth noting

425. that there is relatively little discussed

426. about what happened after.

427. - I don't know how long we're going to be here,

428. but we'll be here for a while.

429. It's going to be hard.

430. - You get rid of Saddam,

431. you get rid of his lieutenants, then what?

432. And the big question about how are you

433. going to govern this country, how are you going to rebuild it,

434. wasn't something that was much discussed in Washington

435. in the run up to the war.

436. But it would come to bedevil us for years to come.

437. - And would end up killing thousands of American troops.

438. But at first, all seem to be going well for U. S. forces.

439. - Within three weeks, U. S. forces were in Baghdad,

440. Saddam Hussein's government had melted.

441. And in some quarters in Washington,

442. there was a feeling that

443. the mission had been accomplished.

444. - Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.

445. In the battle of Iraq,

446. the United States and our allies have prevailed.

447. - But for those of us in Baghdad,

448. it was clear that we had just finished the first chapter

449. of what was going to be a very long book.

450. And the reality is the furthest thing from mission accomplished.

451. - I got to the city of Baghdad at the same time

452. the president said the mission was accomplished.

453. - Paul Rieckhoff was an infantry officer in the National Guard,

454. stationed in one of the city's most dangerous neighborhoods.

455. - We arrived with no body armor, with no adequate vehicles,

456. without water, we didn't have

457. enough water to go around.

458. The most powerful army in — the world has ever seen,

459. and we had to scrap for ammunition and body armor?

460. - But the troops were rushed into the region

461. without adequate equipment on the back of lies

462. told about weapons of mass destruction.

463. - Our vehicles are not armored.

464. We're digging pieces of rusted scrap metal

465. to put on our vehicles to take into combat.

466. - As you know, you go to war with the army you have,

467. not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

468. - The Bush administration also claimed

469. they'd be greeted as liberators.

470. - Yeah.

471. - Now soldiers like Paul Rieckhoff

472. found themselves occupiers in an increasingly hostile land.

473. - Only someone who's never experienced war

474. thinks that it's quick and easy and simple.

475. War is complicated, war is messy,

476. war is expensive, war is painful.

477. - The ones that are fighting truly believe

478. in their cause, just as we do.

479. When we were fighting for our independence,

480. we fought like the Indians.

481. The man will fight with whatever he has at hand.

482. - As the insurgency started to pick up in intensity,

483. U.S. forces were totally unprepared.

484. And importantly, they were unprepared

485. in terms of equipment.

486. In many cases, our soldiers would drive around in Humvees,

487. in four wheel drive vehicles

488. that lacked any meaningful protection

489. against small arms fire or roadside bombs.

490. - As anarchy and violence quickly consumed Iraq,

491. the political elites found sanctuary

492. in a fortified compound.

493. - So while they were in air-conditioned bunkers,

494. we were in the streets bleeding and dying.

495. - When the months after U. S. forces arrived,

496. Washington realized,

497. hey, we actually need to send some people over

498. to try to govern, administer and rebuild this country.

499. And so the U. S. needed a headquarters in Baghdad,

500. and it turned pretty quickly to the large compound

501. that housed Saddam Hussein's Republican Palace,

502. right smack dab in the center of Baghdad.

503. This place soon got a name.

504. In contrast to the red zone, the dangerous Iraq

505. all around it, this area inside

506. was called the Green Zone.

507. - The Green Zone quickly became a four square mile

508. piece of America in the heart of Baghdad.

509. - You could go jogging on the streets,

510. you could get bacon cheeseburgers

511. and other such things that weren't available,

512. you know, in Iraqi restaurants, and you could get a drink.

513. - Well, I didn't know there was going to be a steaks out here.

514. - My unit was on the other side of the river

515. from the Green Zone.

516. So while these guys were sleeping

517. in palatial palaces

518. and walking around in suits saying there was no insurgency,

519. that we were winning the war,

520. that we were being treated as liberators,

521. we were facing hostility and riots

522. and the manifestation of what would become the insurgency.

523. - And so the Green Zone was like not only a fantasy,

524. it became part of the problem that — that elites

525. could insulate themselves from the destruction

526. that they had wrought and they could pursue

527. their — their silly ideas that Iraq was going to quickly

528. turn into a miniature version of America.

529. - People who thought we were going to roll into Iraq

530. and make it look like New Jersey were — were dangerously

531. disconnected and out of touch with the reality.

532. Iraq is never going to look like New Jersey,

533. but Iraq is a place that motivated

534. hundreds of thousands of mostly young men

535. to come and fight against us.

536. - And kill Americans.

537. While U. S. soldiers began to feel the brunt

538. of a growing insurgency,

539. corporations were raking in profits by the billions.

540. - The great American General Smedley Butler

541. once said war is a racket,

542. and Iraq was definitely a racket.

543. And the American troops were not in on it.

544. The American troops had to scrape and scrap

545. for everything while other guys were getting rich,

546. while companies like Halliburton were getting no-bid contracts.

547. - Private companies made an estimated $140 billion

548. from the conflict, securing lucrative contracts

549. in private security,

550. reconstruction and oil production.

551. - War shouldn't be about profit.

552. War should be a last resort,

553. and it should be something that we try to end

554. as quickly as possible.

555. It shouldn't be a bonanza for scumbags to come in

556. and get rich, and that's what we saw.

557. We saw scumbags and grifters come in

558. and get rich off Iraq while we lost our legs and our friends.

559. So that cuts to maybe the most outrageous part

560. of America's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan

561. is that some people gave everything and others got rich.

562. They want the war to go on

563. so they can make more money and buy champagne.

564. That cuts to the core of how unequal it was

565. and how dangerous it was for our national security

566. to have the profit motive introduced

567. on a level we'd never seen before.

568. - Major American combat operations in Iraq

569. eventually wound down in December 2011.

570. The war cost taxpayers an estimated $2 trillion dollars,

571. but the cost to Americans went way beyond the dollars spent.

572. - Approximately 4,500 U. S. service members

573. would be killed in action.

574. Tens of thousands would come home injured,

575. some of them gravely, missing limbs,

576. suffering from traumatic brain injuries,

577. wracked by post-traumatic stress.

578. - We're really good at sending people to war.

579. We're really good at paying to send people to war.

580. We're really bad at bringing people home

581. and taking care of them once they get back.

582. Guys like Paul Wolfowitz and Don Rumsfeld

583. said you go to war with the army, you have.

584. That's right, and then you come home to the VA you have.

585. And when I went to war with the army we had,

586. I came home to the VA we had, which was a VA that didn't know

587. how to take care of women, didn't know how to treat

588. post-traumatic stress disorder,

589. didn't know about roadside bombs,

590. didn't know about ear injuries

591. and the other kinds of wounds we were facing.

592. And already we've lost more people to suicide

593. than we've lost on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

594. And we will lose many more in the decades to come.

595. - In the vacuum left by the removal of Saddam's regime

596. and the end of a major U. S. military presence,

597. extremism flourished and many more lives would be lost.

598. - So, you get ISIS after about 10 or 11 years of — of —

599. of the crisis caused by the U. S. invasion of Iraq.

600. And ISIS is — is a real threat to regional stability.

601. - The fight against ISIS has claimed tens of thousands

602. more Iraqi lives,

603. with millions losing their homes and way of life,

604. but it has done something else.

605. Kept the business of war going.

606. - This has been produced by the, supposedly,

607. the attempt to make the world safe

608. with U. S. military means,

609. but it produces insecurity.

610. And then that insecurity justifies

611. more of the same military intervention and spending.

612. - Our government has spent trillions of dollars

613. over the last two decades

614. fighting perceived enemies across the globe.

615. But has it really made us safer?

616. - And then once you guys are out, I can take the mask off?

617. - Yes. - Okay.

618. - We've disproportionately allocated our resources,

619. and not just money, but really our attention.

620. And so for years, preparing for a global pandemic

621. was something that was shockingly under resourced,

622. not just in terms of money and equipment,

623. but in terms of the time

624. and thinking of senior policymakers.

625. - February 29, 2020 —

626. the first confirmed death from COVID-19

627. is reported in the United States.

628. - Unfortunately, one person passed away overnight.

629. On the very same day over 7,000 miles away,

630. the U. S. government signs a peace deal with the Taliban,

631. highlighting a grim reality.

632. Since American troops were first sent to Afghanistan in 2001,

633. that war has raged on while problems that threaten

634. the lives of Americans back home have been ignored.

635. - So, February 2020, there was supposedly

636. a peace agreement signed.

637. But there's been no peace for American soldiers for 19 years.

638. There's been no peace for the Afghans for 19 years,

639. and there's no peace in the region.

640. - The original mission of the Afghan war

641. was aimed at toppling the Taliban government

642. so that the United States and allied forces

643. would be able to kill or capture the top leadership of Al Qaeda,

644. specifically Osama bin Laden.

645. - And Afghanistan has become the place

646. that Osama bin Laden hoped it would become.

647. The place that would suck in the American military,

648. that would suck in our blood and treasure,

649. that would take our eye off the ball.

650. And Afghanistan is in some ways part of the reason

651. why we can't prepare adequately for a pandemic.

652. If we hadn't fought the war in Afghanistan,

653. think about how much better prepared

654. we could have been for the coronavirus.

655. - For years, preparing for a global pandemic

656. was something that was shockingly under resourced,

657. not just in terms of money and equipment,

658. but in terms of the time and thinking of senior policymakers.

659. - But where is the PPE? Where are the ventilators?

660. - And it's a sad reflection on this society

661. that we have the greatest,

662. most powerful military in the history of mankind,

663. and yet nurses have had to wear garbage bags

664. to protect themselves from patients in hospitals.

665. - The pandemic is hurting America in ways that Osama bin Laden

666. could have only dreamed of, and in my view,

667. is the greatest modern threat

668. to our national security we've ever seen.

669. - But the pandemic isn't the only threat to national security

670. that the ongoing war in Afghanistan

671. has distracted us from.

672. - When you look at the most significant attack

673. that has been perpetrated against Americans

674. in recent years,

675. there was a cyber attack in 2016.

676. - Hello, hello.

677. - Election interference by the Russians,

678. a concerted campaign of misinformation,

679. of disinformation targeted at American voters.

680. - We viewed Russia as a regional power very famously.

681. You know, that's what President Obama called Russia,

682. much to Putin's chagrin.

683. We thought that Russia is not a threat to us.

684. Russia's military is not a threat to us.

685. Therefore, there is there's no way

686. that Russia can undermine the United States.

687. And we were too late to recognize this threat.

688. I think we are distracted by, for instance, the war on terror.

689. - We'll never know conclusively whether those attacks

690. resulted in President Trump's election,

691. but it was the most significant attack

692. directed against the United States

693. and one that we continue to be woefully unprepared to defend.

694. - Just recently, Twitter was hacked by a 17-year-old.

695. We're lucky that that hacker just used it

696. to get himself some Bitcoin

697. and not start a nuclear war.

698. - I think that we've started to realize

699. that not only can our government not take care of us

700. in a way that we would expect them to,

701. but they can't even carry out the basic necessity

702. of taking care of our national security.

703. - Security is about the lives of Americans,

704. and those threats are more than just bombs

705. or hijacked airplanes.

706. It's microscopic virus particles.

707. It's potential cyber attacks.

708. For Americans to feel truly secure,

709. they need not just that sort of physical security,

710. they need to know that they have security

711. when it comes to their health.

712. - We may get to the point where more people are killed

713. by COVID in the United States

714. than were killed in the second World War.

715. - We're dying constantly in just really overtly incompetent ways,

716. and I think that it's making it obvious that this government

717. that has completely sold itself on its ability

718. to protect us has failed in every regard.

719. - This is what happens when there is a shadow agenda,

720. a shadow America that benefits one group of people

721. at the expense of the greater good.

722. All they need is for you not to pay attention.

723. All they need is for you not to know

724. where America's sons and daughters are dying

725. or how much money they spend on a weapons system

726. or where they're deploying troops.

727. They hope you don't pay attention

728. if you don't pay attention, that's how this happens.

729. That's how billions of dollars are spent.

730. That's how cities are left vulnerable.

731. That's how pandemics spread.

732. - And so it's maybe a time for us to rethink

733. about what makes us safe and and what really endangers us.

734. - We kind of had a phrase decades ago

735. in the prep industry called 72 hours to animal.

736. We don't believe that anymore.

737. We believe it's more like 72 seconds

738. or 72 minutes to animal.

739. Chaos is going to break out within

740. the first hour or hours.

741. Rich people in government, they take care of themselves.

742. But for the middle class and for lower-income folks,

743. you're absolutely on your own.

744. Government's number one priority is taking care of themselves.

745. Police number one priority, continuity of government,

746. taking care of the elected officials.

747. - Back up!