Title: Ukraine War, Mass Surveillance, Trump, UFOs & CIA Tortur
Show: London Real
Date: 2023-08-09
URL: https://youtu.be/QlIUEY1QiRA
Duration: 45:00

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[00:01] we transitioned into what has become a permanent wartime economy every president For Better or Worse wants to be a wartime President right that's how you enter the history books I guess selling defense is a maybe an easy thing to do for humans because you can introduce fear or uncertainty and it's maybe the perfect business model so how does this end John I'm not sure how it ends short of the most devastating recession or depression in American

[00:32] history that forces us to reassess our priorities Americans is you always offer US democracy and military aid and the Chinese offer us food and New Roads and the next thing you know the Chinese have bases all over Africa and in Washington here at the state department they ask themselves how did that happen just do what the Chinese are doing and stop spending so much money on unnecessary defense expenditures I need to hear a

[01:04] little bit about your personal story you were on the line you saw that torture program you mentioned that Cheney was in that room there and then I guess you saw kind of things that went into place the way I made a real name for myself at the agency was the capture of Abu zubaida who was the number three in Al Qaeda and catching him that night literally changed the course of the rest of my life for better for worse mostly for worse because that's when they wanted to torture him and that's when you drew the line yeah I said guys have none of you Geneva Convention we can't do that it's

[01:38] a war crime you know they call you the human rights guy and I said yeah I know that and he said you know that's not a compliment right and I said Steve I'm right and they're wrong and that's what's gonna come out at the end [Music] the world is changing inspiration is everywhere

[02:10] it has never been so easy to connect share and bring people together we're learning from others and finding the best in ourselves [Music] challenging our beliefs [Music] sharing our vulnerability overcoming our fears transforming ourselves so we can transform the world

[02:44] how far can we go this is London reel I am Brian Rose my guest today is [Music] this is London real I am Brian Rose my guest today is John kiriaku the former CIA officer counter-terrorism expert author and whistleblower you work for the CIA from 1990 to 2004 notably as the chief of counter-terrorist operations in Pakistan due to the 9 11 Terror attacks

[03:16] here you refuse to participate in the training of enhanced interrogation techniques later identified as a torture program in 2009 with an interview with ABC you became the first former government official to confirm the use of waterboarding against Al-Qaeda suspects and in 2012 you were charged with leaking classified information to journalists and sentenced to 30 months in prison as a result you lost friendships your job and were vilified in the mainstream Press today you focus on fighting for human rights and

[03:47] supporting those that face similar consequences and you ultimately believe there are things we should never do even in the name of National Security and the US government should stop participating in immoral and unethical practices John welcome to londonreal thank you so much for having me it's a pleasure looking forward to jumping into it I think you once said I'm a patriot I love my country I want it to succeed but I think it's making a lot of mistakes and I'd love to get your opinion on kind of what's happening in the world I think

[04:18] I'll start off with a situation that's close to home over here and that's the war in Ukraine and I was just wondering what is your what is your take on what's happening there we're what 500 some days into it the US is pumping tons of money tons of weapons into that we recently saw this Wagner quote-unquote coup happen you know you work for the Sputnik radio and so maybe you know a few things about Russia that we don't what is your take on the situation as we see it now

[04:53] popular either at work or amongst my friends my position is look if we're going to be supporters of Peace then we have to be supporters of peace I understand why the Russian government took the decision to enter Ukraine I understand that the United States was behind a coup a soft coup in 2014 but if we're going to be peace next then we have to oppose War period and so on on the day of the

[05:24] invasion I sat on my radio show which is on Sputnik radio here in Washington it's a Russian government-owned radio network I said at the start of the show I unequivocally oppose the Russian invasion of Ukraine and I urge Russian troops to leave Ukraine immediately with that said I equally strongly oppose U.S and NATO intervention in Ukraine we told the the the Russian government repeatedly and I'm talking about

[05:55] uh president uh uh Bill Clinton president Barack Obama we told them repeatedly that we would not support Ukrainian membership in NATO and we never meant that we we were lying to them to placate them and so knowing that that was a Russian Redline we did it anyway and we started talking to the Ukrainian government about entering NATO we promised the Russian government that we would not allow NATO to expand to its borders and we did repeatedly with the Baltic states for example and Poland

[06:27] still to then point the finger at the Russians and say this is this is all the result of Russian hegemony of Russian imperialism is disingenuous I think at the very least everybody should be sitting at the table and we should be trying to negotiate a settlement to this thing why do you think the the Biden Administration has seemed to go kind of all in on this War I mean is it something as simple as you know it's easy to get reelected in Wartime a matter of fact I think there's almost like 100 correlation or is it much

[06:59] deeper because they've really grabbed on to this and you know if it seems like one of their core platforms is that we are fighting for whatever reasons and we're going to take this all the way um not always the party of war in the past and just yeah curious on why you think they did that and was it obvious they would do that from the start I think that's a very important question and I think the answer is several fold number one yes you're

[07:30] correct I think this was a strategic re-election move um number two and I don't mean to sound cynical but I really believe this I think that Joe Biden like every other president uh is constantly thinking about his legacy every president For Better or Worse wants to be a wartime President right that's how you enter the history books is as a wartime president and uh you know we were we were pulling out of Afghanistan after two decades we're pulling out of Iraq after nearly two decades uh

[08:02] what better way to make a name for yourself for generations to come than to take on one of the world's greatest Powers in Russia and to do it for what you say is is the right reasons so I think that's a part of it as well um and you know one of the things that's that's utterly perplexing to me is what you've just alluded to and that is the flip that we've seen in the Democratic party where the Democratic party used to used to lead demonstrations in the

[08:33] streets in opposition for example to uh the Vietnam War it was the Democrats who came out uh in opposition to the little tiny mini war that we had in Grenada in the early uh 1980s the only opposition to the first Gulf War was among a handful of Democratic senators uh it was it was only Democrats that opposed the second year Iraq War well what what happened why are the Democrats all in and and they're all in

[09:04] without giving long-term thought to how exactly we're going to pay for all this and what does Victory look like nobody's ever nobody's ever actually Quantified what that's going to be at what point do we declare Victory and go home is it the utter defeat of the Russian military because that's never going to happen the Russian military is 20 times the size of the Ukrainian military and it has nuclear weapons so again what is Victory I think we

[09:35] should begin to temper our expectations and whether we like it at this early stage or not get everybody to the negotiating table yeah what does Victory look like I think I was I had Colonel uh McGregor on a couple weeks ago I think he brought that yeah he's great yeah he's fantastic he brought that same question up and you know you've heard it so many times throughout history you asked that question about Vietnam you asked that question about Iraq you asked the question about Afghanistan so many people have openly asked it and yes right now here we are and they're like what the hell does Victory look like you

[10:05] know what I bet you couldn't even get an answer from that out of out of DC and you've got the Republican side people like Donald Trump which I guess 10 years ago you'd think this guy of course he would want war you know he's saying the crazy thing is both Donald Trump and RFK and I you I know you've had conversations with him and we have as well they both said I could end this war with a phone call and it's old right first of all do you think that's true John do you think both of those guys could end it with a phone call that's a tough one

[10:36] um uh perhaps I hate to be wishy-washy I apologize for that uh it's it's possible first of all let me say Doug Doug McGregor's a dear friend of mine and I have absolutely deep respect uh for not just his his knowledge and understanding of these complex issues but for his willingness to go out on a limb even when his positions are unpopular we need more people like that in Washington not

[11:06] fewer you know Doug was supposed to be the U.S ambassador to Germany and the Republicans blocked his nomination now how ridiculous is that I don't want to get too far off topic but uh yeah I suppose it it would be popular if the Russian side were were able to trust an American leader and I think that they would trust Donald Trump and Bob Kennedy on this issue I think that could lead to some sort of a of a settlement and how ironic is it

[11:39] how odd is it that it's the Republicans who have begun saying look we can't afford this over the long term this is not a cost that the American taxpayers should bear this is not a war that we need to be involved in it's a war of choice why aren't the Democrats saying that why do we have the likes of of Alexandria ocasio-cortez supporting um supporting Appropriations for

[12:09] continued war or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren I just don't understand the rule reversal that we've seen in this war it it doesn't make any kind of sense to me yeah and meanwhile there's like hundreds of thousands of ukrainians dying there's tons of money being pumped in and I want to ask you about your theories on the wartime economy because it's it's it it bring it comes up here for sure and then on top of that I don't know what you see in America but here in the UK you see a

[12:39] massive mainstream media bias towards Ukraine oh my God I mean oh it's ridiculous it's ridiculous and I pull up the guardian and the times and then I look at the New York Times sometimes occasionally I still do and I just look at it and I'm just like guys I mean if there's any tiny little bit of Victory they magnify it from the ukrainians and if there's any tiny slip in the in the Russians they magnify it luckily I get to talk to like guys like Jim Rickards and Colonel McGregor and they're like look this is not the truth on the ground

[13:10] and if you know that you look at the media and even the media can't sell me on it so why do you think that's happening and what do you see do you see the same thing oh I absolutely see the same thing and the worst offenders are the New York Times in the Washington Post you just can't trust uh coverage in the New York Times The Washington Post like you said they'll take the smallest setback on the part of the Russians and blow it up to you know the end of the wars at hand

[13:41] they'll take the the smallest Victory by the ukrainians and say that you know this is David and Goliath I I can't tell you how many times I've seen that analogy uh in fact when the ukrainians had set out to uh to begin the counter-offensive which was actually several weeks late uh it was the Ukrainian military that predicted that by this point in the summer they would have moved 60 miles inside Russian territory and they would have divided

[14:12] the Russian military into two in Crimea in fact here we are months after the start of the counter offensive they've moved five miles uh inside Russian territory they're nowhere near Crimea and they have not split the Russian military well that's that's the loss that's not a victory but what was the banner headline on the New York Times today it was an analysis of how uh Vladimir Putin was almost overthrown in what they're now calling

[14:42] the Wagner Coupe there was no Wagner coup it just never happened it was it was an ill-fated uh March a third of the way to Moscow that the Russian government was able to negotiate out of and the leader of this coup attempt has been has been exiled so rather than to focus on made up patriotic uh uh falsities why don't we tell the truth

[15:14] the real truth and and courage and end this conflict why do the major outlets in the American Media have to be cheerleaders for American government policy that just doesn't make any sense to me it hasn't been like that in the past at least not to this degree but this is what we're up against where you just can't find Reliable news yeah I've had Seymour hershon here who used to work for the Times And now when he comes out with his theory on the Nordstrom bombing which I might get your thoughts on you know they won't even

[15:45] talk or print what he's referring to and they they make some other story up and like you know you spent time a lot of time in the CIA and you know about psyops and you know about surveillance when you look at the New York Times like how how do you explain that to yourself like is there someone at the top that just says we take the the you know the the left narrative and we magnify it it can't be that simple or do they really believe in what they're doing no it's not that simple okay uh yeah they do

[16:16] believe in what they're doing and you know what I'm going to answer your question with a with a short story uh my last job at CIA headquarters was as um the executive assistant to the cia's deputy director for operations very important job access to literally everything and long hard hours so I had uh I had hit a lull in my day my boss was off in a meeting and I kind of kicked back in my chair like this and I was looking out into the hallway

[16:47] and I was just relaxing momentarily looking out into the hallway and Bob Woodward walked past it my office Bob Woodward being the the famed acclaimed Washington Post uh senior investigative report and my brain didn't believe what my eyes had seen so I said to the secretary hey was that Bob Woodward that just walked past the office and she said yeah I said without a security expert ex escort Bob

[17:20] Woodward is just walking the halls of CIA headquarters and she said oh you didn't see the director's email and I said no she said yeah uh they gave him free reign he's writing a book and and we've all been ordered to cooperate with him well I I refused I mean like one of the holy of holies at the CIA is that you never ever talk to the media for any reason well I came to learn that of

[17:51] course you talk to the media when you know the media are willing to carry your water for you you know exactly who to leak to and who you're going to lead to are Bob Woodward at the Washington Post Joby Warwick at the post um uh David Ignatius at the post and a half a dozen people at the New York Times and then there are a couple of other people you know NBC News and the LA Times and Wolf Blitzer at CNN uh because

[18:22] they're going to report exactly what you want them to report so it's it's not as clear-cut as as most Americans believe I'll give you another example I was only on the job for a couple of weeks this was in 1990 and um and I saw Wolf Blitzer Walking The Halls with a camera crew no less and no security escort and he was doing a stand-up with his microphone right in front of a sign that said CIA uh historical intelligence collection it

[18:54] was a an offshoot of the CIA library and I don't remember looking at him and just shaking my head as I was walking out like well somebody ought to be arrested for this probably Wolf Blitzer and the CIA security person who's not escorting him right now and I I walked out but this kind of thing happens all the time you know they we like to think that there's this Chinese wall between uh the CIA and especially senior Cia officers and the American Media and in fact

[19:26] they're in bed together wow wow and it was funny because I talked to see more about his theory on the North stream bombing and then a couple weeks later I saw the New York Times article again with this when you hear the details that Seymour gives you and then you see the New York Times article it was this wacky theory about some bulgarians that rented a boat and went down there and I was just like look I've never spent any time in CIA headquarters but it didn't take an expert to realize that story sounded it

[19:56] sounded like somebody fed it to them and they just printed it up just to satisfy some things and just keep it moving and it was just had a bunch of holes in it even I could see from one hour with Seymour so um but I guess the American public doesn't really know any better they read it they keep moving on and so this is a psyops that works you fool most of the people most of the time and so it proceeds one of my closest friends uh used to be a boss of mine when I was on a two-year rotation to the state department so he's

[20:27] a very senior former State Department official in fact I'm going to have dinner with him tonight and um when uh this explosion took place on the nordstrain pipeline um I called him and I said I said we we had to have done this right I mean it couldn't be anybody else it had to be us and he said no no the Russians did it and I said you think the Russians blew up their own pipeline what what could they possibly have to gain by blowing up

[20:59] their own pipeline well he said it would be embarrassing for us I said Don with all due respect that doesn't make any kind of sense at all and I talked to cyhurst about it and I said uh I said this was us right and he said well it could be us it could be the uh the ukrainians and I said yeah if the ukrainians had a mini sub that would allow them to go down there but do they even have that kind of technology I mean we're the only ones that have that kind of technology that I know of when I say

[21:31] we I mean the United States and NATO I just don't get what anybody else on the other side would have to gain from something like this and sure enough Psy was mostly right uh if it wasn't us it was the ukrainians we all suspected it uh even though the mainstream media doesn't want to actually come out and say it and let me add something about cyhurst too you know this is a guy this is a guy who for the last 60 years has been one of the most highly honored

[22:02] highly awarded uh journalists uh in in America the guy was was the definition of investigative journalism in the second half of the 20th century and he literally cannot get published anymore uh I'm a member of a group called veteran intelligence Professionals for sanity it's a group of of retirees from the CIA the FBI NSA and and the U.S military and we give an award every year called the the Sam Adams award for integrity in

[22:32] intelligence we gave the award to Psy in 2017 and he complained that that he was under such pressure from the mainstream media here in the United States that the only place he could get his pieces published was in the London Review of Books which is great it's highly respected but nobody reads the London Review of Books they might have a few thousand subscribers now here we are five years later and he can't even get himself published in the London Review of Books and so he's had

[23:03] to take to sub stack to publish himself and to get the truth out there that's how bad things have gotten here in the United States yeah if there was ever a perfect example it's that I mean again look at what he did with My Lai Massacre I mean this is exactly I mean this is a guy who had you know he's shown that he has a commitment to like to journalism and to Integrity enough to where you know he was hated and vilified by the military but he brings that same ethics to what he's doing today and now that these same

[23:36] Publications won't touch him and it's like he Psy hasn't changed the media happens right oh you're exactly right yeah the media has changed we've changed as Americans but can you imagine for example the United States ever being able able to point to someone some media figure and say you know what he's the new Walter Cronkite Walter cronkite's dead and gone there will never be another Walter Cronkite

[24:06] there will there will never be another media figure that a majority of Americans has respect for to the point where every four years people say you know what would be really great is if Walter Cronkite would run for president that will never ever happen again never wow because there's nobody with that type of Integrity in that space anymore yeah that person doesn't exist it's uh it's it's it's a brand new world I guess at least we could see it happening you

[24:36] know with people like PSY and I know he's had some success on on substack which is great and uh I always love talking to him he's uh he's my only guest that uh that rocks in a rocking chair while he talks and uh and it doesn't matter because everyone watches him so um yeah Luca's great to see just to finish how do you think this plays out with Russia like what do you think happens especially if you take it all the way up to the election at the CIA in our analysis we used to use this term all the time muddling through

[25:06] um you know so many so many people just naturally their brain defaults to an either or uh uh Choice uh when they when they try to prognosticate and oftentimes what was true was that the parties in the conflict just sort of muddled through and things just didn't change over the medium term and I think that that's what we're looking at here the Russians aren't gonna aren't going to use nuclear weapons I don't think they'll even use tactical nuclear weapons because they'll lose the propaganda advantage of saying look the

[25:38] only country in the history of the planet that's ever used nuclear weapons is the United States and they did it twice right they don't want to be lumped in with that they want to be able to continue to point at the United States like they've done since 1945. um they don't need to use nuclear weapons even tactical ones uh now they have a virtually Unlimited Supply of of suicide drones that they're getting from both the Chinese and the Iranians and are attempting to purchase from the from the Indians and so what's better than a

[26:11] small payload on a on a drone that costs you fourteen thousand dollars rather than the you know 100 000 or 200 000 that American missiles cost and you can just lob them into buildings or into military bases or onto airfields I think that they're just going to continue to do that I think we'll see a slight upgrade in the level of uh of Russian technology that they're able to either develop or to purchase on the open market I think that here in the United

[26:41] States will continue to arm and and to train the ukrainians in basically whatever they want up to and including the F-16 and then I think as we approach the American elections the Republicans are going to have a real campaign issue uh going home and saying why should we be paying for all this we have bridges falling into the rivers

[27:13] below them we have international airports that are international embarrassments for anybody who's ever traveled around the world we have an interstate highway system that would take a trillion dollars to repair and we want to move the world's microchip manufacturing out of uh out of Taiwan and Singapore and into Ohio and uh and Arizona with what money

[27:43] with the money that we're sending to to Ukraine this has to come to a stop and God knows already our our NATO allies don't want to pay for it they're they're uh their National debts as a as a function of GDP are worse than ours they want us to pay for it and so I think we'll we'll muddle through the short term and maybe the medium term and then it's going to become a political issue here in the United States where where American voters just say look

[28:15] enough enough with this we don't want to pay for it anymore this has to be settled and I think eventually it will be you know we a lot of us said this at the very beginning too and I I should repeat this um I think in the end the Russians are going to keep uh Donetsk and luhansk they're going to keep the Crimea there will be a promise that Ukraine will not join NATO but the United States will declare Ukraine a major non-nato Ally like Israel or Japan or Bahrain or Saudi

[28:47] Arabia and uh Ukraine will be fast tracked for membership in the European Union I think that's how this ends hmm hmm and do you think this could lose the abide in the re-election or do you think with all the propaganda going on it will not be a major enough issue for people to say enough is enough I don't think it'll be enough of an issue I think it's going to drag on longer than that I think it's going to drag on through the election now if Joe Biden were able to run for for election

[29:19] again in 2028 which of course he's not even if he were to be alive in 2028 um I think by 2028 everybody's going to be sick of this but I think 2024 is practically upon us and you know look look around I I'm I'm looking over for example uh right now as we speak not McPherson Square but uh but Farragut Square I'm one block from the White House and we're not seeing people in the streets we're not seeing people marching

[29:50] with signs and placards saying you know end the war we're not people are just going about their normal business like they generally don't care because it doesn't affect them directly but when we have to keep raising taxes to pay for these weapon systems and all this money goes to U.S defense contractors and they get rich while you and I get poor and we continue to neglect our infrastructure

[30:22] then finally I think people are going to get sick of this well let's talk about that John because this is this is kind of Ip that's unique to you because I've heard you say the following that if we were not at war or producing weapons for war we would immediately go into a recession and you've argued that's the case for the past couple decades um can you explain that position because a lot of people would be surprised to hear that yeah I've been saying this for a little while now in the immediate aftermath of

[30:53] the 9 11 attacks uh we transitioned into what has become a permanent wartime economy pre-911 the wealthiest place in America was Silicon Valley it had the most millionaires per capita of anywhere in the United States that is no longer true now Washington DC is the wealthiest place in America and it's because of the trillions with a t trillions of dollars that we have spent on the

[31:25] military-industrial complex there are literally thousands of Beltway Bandits these are military and intelligence Community contractors that ring the capital Beltway that surrounds uh Washington DC and now there are more millionaires per capita in Washington DC than there are anywhere else in America it's because of 9 11 and it's because of our government's commitment to spend literally unlimited amounts of money on

[31:55] what is deemed to be National Defense well we've gotten so used to you know sucking the the teat so to speak of the American taxpayer that we now can't shut off that flow of money to these these Beltway Bandits these defense contractors without pushing the country into recession that's how much money we're spending we can't we can't move that money we can't

[32:26] move those Appropriations to something else like uh transportation for example or infrastructure or education or the environment including the environmental cleanup we just can't they can't absorb those those gigantic amounts of money it took us 20 years to get where we are with defense you know I'll add another thing and I I promise not to throw too many uh statistics at

[33:00] you but our defense budget is now bigger than the next nine largest countries combined right you take China Germany the UK France Japan the next nine largest countries combined and we still spend more why to prepare for what to give free money to the ukrainians

[33:31] or money to uh these countries of the Sahel no this is all supposed to be a big secret but we're pumping billions of dollars into Niger and Mali and Burkina Faso and guinea conocry and guinea bissau for what reason the French problem why aren't the French pumping their money into those countries why does it always have to be us and why is it a secret don't the American taxpayers have the

[34:03] right to know where their money's going and to decide if that's an appropriate expenditure I would say yes so there's no reason for us to be spending this kind of money I'll tell you something else too a couple of weeks ago a policeman was shot in Paris shot and severely wounded and the gun the rifle that he was shot with was uh was confiscated by the police and the serial number on this rifle was an assault rifle the serial number matched the serial number from a shipment of assault

[34:35] rifles that we had sent to Ukraine about six months earlier how in the world did that assault rifle come into the possession of a criminal in Paris I'll tell you because it had been sold on the black market so where's the oversight for these billions and billions of dollars that we're turning over to the ukrainians now we're not just writing a check and sending cash we've learned our lesson to not do that we did that right from Iraq right yeah we did it in Iraq right so we're we're writing these checks to

[35:07] the defense contractors and the defense contractors then send the equipment to Ukraine well the equipment's then for sale on the black market for pennies on the dollar why why do we permit that where is the Congressional oversight and even not even Congressional oversight where are the inspectors General at DOD and CIA and these other organizations that are active on the ground there this is really a a great vast disservice to the American people wow so if enough

[35:39] people's paychecks depend on it these Beltway Bandits then it's just going to happen because you can't shut down all of their livelihoods so they're going to find a way to make it happen it's like a weird kind of a shadow government a bit of momentum there and they'll use whatever it takes to get there and I guess selling more or selling defense is a maybe an easy thing to do for humans because you can introduce fear or uncertainty and also I don't know how many guns it takes to fight that scary

[36:09] thing over there right yeah and so it's maybe the perfect business model oh my God yes you're exactly right it's the perfect business model and you look at some of these Appropriations votes I don't mean to smile I mean I'm smiling I guess ironically you look at these Appropriations those and you have some of the most conservative bible-beating members of Congress joining hands with the most liberal

[36:40] Democratic Socialist members of Congress and voting yes on these budgets because they represent this area and the excerbs of Washington DC and that's what makes Washington Recession Proof right there will never be a recession in Washington because the business of Washington is government but it's not just government it's government and it's what my former CIA colleague Ray McGovern calls the Mickey mat I I say the

[37:11] military-industrial complex he says the military industrial Congressional uh uh I forget whatever else it's a whole list of things complex that makes this city run it's it's the lobbyists and it's the defense contractors and it's the consultants and it's the lobbyists in addition to uh to Congress and he's absolutely right nobody is going to allow you to take this away from them not after 20 years

[37:42] of getting rich it's it's no wonder now that this is one of the most expensive real estate markets in America now you know we used to laugh about markets like San Francisco and Honolulu and Manhattan say my God I'm glad I don't live there who could afford to live there well now that's what our prices are like in real estate and it's because there are so many people who are rich that they can afford to buy houses at these inflated prices because they're

[38:14] the ones making this government money wow wow and also I'm guessing if you're a member of Congress or the Senate your local constituency wherever it is has a big chunk of their revenue probably coming in from some type of Defense contracts and so if you want to get reelected first of all you want to be supported by the lobbyists and then you also want to make sure jobs aren't lost and so it just becomes this flywheel and everybody just lets it go oh yeah you've hit that nail right on the head uh and that's what happens even

[38:46] by members of Congress who vote against these Appropriations sure they'll vote against the appropriation when they know that their no votes not going to kill the bill right and then they'll go back home and say for every dollar that we send to the federal government in our taxes I bring in a dollar Seventeen in uh in federal aid or in Contracting from these uh these defense contractors and people say well that's great that's what congressional

[39:17] representation is all about it's it's like the perfect handshake arrangement everybody's happy everybody makes money and then the rest of us when we realize what's been happening right under our noses and it's too late to do anything about it so how does this end John or does yeah you know I I'm not sure how it ends short of the most devastating recession or depression in American history that

[39:50] forces us to reassess our priorities you know there is no reason none whatsoever why our military budget should be we should be greater than the next nine largest countries in the world combined why did the Chinese for example go all around the world buying ports and airports and factories and building roads in exchange for bonds and and becoming the go-to superpower in places

[40:22] like like Africa for example or all across Asia why is that an African Diplomat told me just recently he was here with with his president um for this White House Summit he said you know the thing about you Americans is you always offer US democracy and military aid and the Chinese offer us food and New Roads so they go with the Chinese they don't want democracy they can't make democracy function anyway

[40:52] and military aid we're going to give that to them anyway because you know terrorism got to stop terrorism and so the Chinese go in and say well listen we'll pave that road that you've been wanting to to build from your Capital City out to the hinterland and all we ask in exchange is you give us the international airport and then you give us five billion dollars uh that you repay over 30 years using treasury bonds and they said hey that sounds like a

[41:22] pretty darn good deal and the next thing you know the Chinese have bases all over Africa and in Washington here at the state department they ask themselves how did that happen we didn't see that coming yeah yeah it's what are they saying you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar that's the expression right well there's the expression about the two bulls on the ridge the poppable and the the young bull and the young bull says the papabola let's run down and

[41:52] [ __ ] one of those cows and the papa Bowl says no let's walk down and [ __ ] them all and so it's America America right so is that America America is this new country you know we we we're aggressors maybe America is an aggressive Nation anyways and so we we do business one way and then the Chinese are meanwhile thinking maybe a thousand years out and saying guess what we're gonna go in we're gonna give them all everything they want and then later maybe they can pay us in Yuan
