Transcription
We are doomed and our leaders are insane. That's the title of a column by Matt Taibbi. We asked Taibbi for an interview, but he didn't respond. Still, the issues he raises deserve more debate, so I made this video based largely on his column.
"We need to clean house of all of the warmongers." Not one of our presidents, writes Taibbi, least of all this lunatic, can resist starting wars.
[music]
When the Soviet Union fell, Bill Clinton said, "The Cold War is over. We must secure the peace." A few years later, "Today our armed forces joined our NATO allies in air strikes against Serbian forces. By acting now, we are advancing the cause of peace." Bombing doesn't always advance peace. NATO today admitted and apologized for hitting houses in the southern Serbian town. 20 people, including children, were killed.
George W. Bush was elected after saying, "America will not be the world's policeman." "I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say, 'This is the way it's got to be.'" Operation Iraqi Freedom. Then Bush became history's all-time world policeman. Bush claims he must disarm Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction and depose a brutal regime supporting global terror.
By the next election, the wars were disastrous. The number that no one wanted to reach in Iraq, 4,000 Americans dead. The war that was supposed to last weeks went on for years. Did the politicians then see the errors of their ways? No. Democrats threw weight behind Hillary Clinton, who wanted to send more troops to Afghanistan. "I still believe we need more troops."
Barack Obama read the room and said, "We need change. Real change." He pushed for a light footprint. He emphasized his constitutional lawyer background, promised to close Guantanamo Bay prison and roll back the war on terror. "I will give our military a new mission on my first day in office, ending this war."
[cheering]
Voters liked that. Obama won. "Change has come to America."
[cheering]
Eight months into the new job, he won a Nobel Peace Prize for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." "I will accept this award as a call to action." Yet Obama began reversing his war-ending promises soon after his election. He expanded assassinations and launched missiles at Libya. "Throughout the night, the US pounded Libya." At one point, Obama reportedly said, "Turns out I'm really good at killing people."
Then came President Biden. "It's time to end the forever war." Biden did withdraw from Afghanistan, but his retreat was disastrous for some of our allies. "Some desperately hung onto the fuselages of departing [music] planes." Biden then declared that the US must be involved in Ukraine. "We've supplied the Ukrainian military with equipment to help them defend themselves."
That brings us to President Trump. Taibbi writes, "From the moment he came down that escalator, he seemed different." "Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction." He started no wars during his first term, and when he ran again, he repeatedly said, "Under Trump, we will have no more wars. No more wars. No more wars."
But look what's happened since. The breaking news this morning, President Trump [music] says the US carried out large-scale strikes on Venezuela. "Major combat operations in Iran." "Bombs will be dropping everywhere."
Taibbi concludes by pointing out, "We're an empire about to pour our vanishing treasure into a 1 and 1/2 trillion-dollar defense budget that's got eyes on Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Greenland, Colombia. I focus on economics. I know little about diplomacy and foreign affairs. But what I have learned is that our politicians' grand plans rarely achieve their stated goals."
"The forces of Germany have surrendered." Since World War II, America's launched military interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Greece, Cuba, Cambodia, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran. Our intentions are good, but often the results are not. I think George Washington had this right. In his farewell address, he said, "Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?"
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