The New World Order

this is a production of Cornell University welcome to all of you and particularly welcome to general Tony's any to Cornell last year general Sydney was named a Frank Rhodes class of 1956 professor at Cornell this professorship is an honor of Cornell's ninth president of Frank Rhodes who served between as president between 1977 and 1995 the purpose of the professorship is to strengthen the undergraduate experience by bringing to the University individuals from every walk of life who represent excellence of achievement as well as to create opportunities for interaction with the undergraduate community this week is the first a campus visit of generals any as the Rhodes professor and we look very much forward to welcoming him back in the next couple of years tonight he speaks here as part of the einaudi centers of foreign policy distinguished speaker series this series is part of the of the einaudi centers a foreign policy initiative which is our attempt to really bring people to campus and forge a much more profound discussion of foreign policy issues on on the campus community we're very grateful for the support received for this initiative from the Einaudi family and from the Kessler family let me let me before introducing our speaker today let me say that the theme for this spring and for next fall is the future of American foreign policy in the context of this presidential year next week let me recommend you all to our speaker Frank Fukuyama who will come here from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and will talk specifically on the future of American foreign policy in the early fall Stephen Krasner who worked at the State Department and has recently returned to Stanford will speak on September 17 and in November Nancy Birdsall of the Center for Global Development in Washington will talk about foreign aid and the developing world again in the context of this election okay for tonight general Zinni is one of the most respected and outspoken American military leaders with exceptional international experience and a careful analyst of world politics he retired from the military in 2000 after commanding the US Central Command and during his 40 plus year of military service he received 23 personal military awards and holds 37 unit service and campaign awards he's also received a number of civilian awards and his military service took him to 70 countries including in Africa Asia Europe the Caribbean and the Pacific he was involved in the planning and execution of operation proven force and operation Patriot defender in support of the Gulf War and of noncombatant evacuation operations he's also participated in presidential diplomatic missions to Somalia Pakistan and Ethiopia as well as State Department missions involving the israeli-palestinian conflict and conflicts in Indonesia and the Philippines general Xindi holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Villanova University and a master's degree in international relations from Salvi Regina College a master's degree finally in business from Central Michigan University and three honorary doctorates he's held several academic positions and has been a member of several University boards and he lectures frequently at colleges and universities in the US and abroad please join me in welcoming general zini to Cornell thank you thank you very much the subject of my talk this evening is the New World Order and I want to take you back to about 1989 I was at that time selected to be a brigadier general and told that my new assignment would be in the European Command as the Deputy Director of Operations I was to attend our capstone course where our newly promoted one-star general and admirals go through a course of training and a trip to the area they're going to be assigned now if you remember back 19 the end of 1989 - beginning of 1990 marked the fall of the Soviet Union would basically go brutes off threw in the towel we arrived several of us newly promoted one stars in Europe and went immediately to Berlin we were to be briefed by the Berlin Brigade an army brigade stationed in Berlin that was always thought of as the frontlines of freedom when we arrived it seemed like chaos no one seemed to know what was happening the Soviet Union had just imploded not even really imploded that that that maybe implies too much energy it's a sort of fizzle and the Berlin Brigade the officers that were supposed to brief us at the time didn't know what to tell us because they were trying to still sort out what had happened I'm sure they had the same briefs that for the last 30 years they'd been given to capstone classes that came and now these briefs were meaningless they were unsure how to humor us for the day or two that we were there so they assigned a young second lieutenant army's second lieutenant to sort of escort us around the army second lieutenant asked us if we would like to go into East Berlin and we asked him if we could do this was this permissible where we allowed to go and he said no one knows nobody knows the rules and he said let's go see what happens and he had a this Volkswagen van that looked like a reject from a 60s hippie a convention we piled into his Volkswagen van and we drove through checkpoint charlie now in the forty years before that and probably back to the beginnings of my memory checkpoint charlie was truly the forward outpost of freedom the point at which we've confronted the the evil empire as President Reagan described it we drove through checkpoint Charlie and nobody was there we drove to the other side drove down the Main Street of Berlin and it was clear that this was a Potemkin village it was a facade the main street as soon as you turned off you saw these pockmarked buildings with the bullet holes still there from World War two you saw the people driving around and 50s vintage bicycles and these German East German produce cars these trolleys belching gas all looking the same and kind of decrepit now we had just come from West Berlin where we had seen outies Mercedes BMWs so this was like a time warp into the early 50s or something we drove around for a while and the lieutenant spotted a Russian military garrison and he said let's go in here we turned the vehicle through the gate and the Russian centuries didn't know whether to shoot or salutis as we came through and we barreled through got out of the van walked around to their officer's club and for a while in their commissary and around their concern there and watch the Russian soldiers and their dependents and I got to tell you what struck me is they seemed like zombies they seemed to be going through the motion but totally unaware what was happening around them they seemed almost numb to events and as I later realized they weren't unsure their future there wasn't a place to go back to in Russia that the military housing wasn't available and they were more confused probably than we were as to what happened in the events there when we came back through checkpoint Charlie the lieutenant managed to reach under his seat and pull out a sledgehammer and he said let's take down the wall so now and I swear we must have been the first ones to do this but now you had about five one-star generals and admirals the United States military banging on a wall with little effect other than a few chips we saved as very valuable souvenirs we came through checkpoint charlie and later that day we went on to our next set of briefings at the US Army Europe headquarters in Heidelberg and after we had an hour helicopter flown down to where we picked up a minibus and drove down I was staring out the window watching the German scenery go by and I was thinking about what I had just experienced because as I said all my life this was the evil empire this is you know the Doomsday Clock was up there around five minutes to twelve and my whole life certainly in the military and I joined when I was 18 had been focused around preventing and deterring and containing or god forbid fighting a Soviet Union and all of a sudden this big gigantic threat disappeared I had a strange thought as we were barreling down the Autobahn I was thinking about mrs. Harris's first grade class 1949 I had to take a pillowcase to class I don't know why I remembered it the pillowcase was so when the air-raid sirens sounded off we pulled the pillowcases over our heads and Gove under the desk or mrs. Harris led us down to the civil defense shelter in the basement of our school our elementary school and that thought about what I had experienced in the earliest memories I had and where I was now 40 years later it told me something that's happened here something big I got to my next command in Stuttgart Germany in the European Command and we were anxious to understand what this all meant President Bush at the time President Bush 41 was giving his speech about a new world order and a peace dividend if you recall if you're old enough to recall and we thought well this is going to be a wonderful time in our history I had a sense that everyone felt the world was going to sort of self order in a positive way a big sigh relief was going to be brief because we no longer face this this Armageddon that that's kind of loomed because of the ability for each side to destroy our species and we all waited for this peace dividend which never came in my time at the European Command we went through all sorts of operations in the Balkans and Africa the Gulf War in the Middle East and instead of a peace dividend it seemed like the world was coming apart like a cheap suit the suitcase our military commitments to peacekeeping missions humanitarian missions combat missions just seemed to come one after another in the years I spent at the European Command following that our battle staff and crisis action team was in being the entire time which was unusual it was unheard of before that to have that happen the number of UN missions and operations US military led coalition operations just seemed to to be never-ending and come one at a time there was not a peace dividend far from it our military was shrinking sure enough and we were watching the size of the forces come down and people were trying to understand what kind of military we would need in this new world and there was the beginnings of talk of transforming the military and some sort of transformation but basically it was just the shrinkage of a military that now was becoming more and more over committed well before 9/11 I got back from this tour of duty with a sense when I returned to the United States that I'm not sure we understand exactly what's happening here there was an attempt by Secretary of State Baker to begin what was termed a Marshall Plan for the republics of the former Soviet Union I was involved with ambassador rich Armitage who headed it up and we attempted to sort of mobilize Europeans and others to connect to this former Soviet Union we did it with NATO generals to the military but on an economic basis in a political basis to begin to sort of ensure that this new world order that the Soviets were entering was one that was stable where we connected them with the in a way that they understood how to operate now in a democracy in a free market economy little efforts that were you know to teach international auditing standards and all sorts of other projects that were embodying this it wasn't successful there wasn't much interest frankly and and it died of it sort of its own weight when I got back from the United States I had to buy a car and I went to the car dealership that I bought my last six or seven cars old Bob was a retired gunnery sergeant United States Marine Corps and I bought my car some of them as far back as I could remember the problem when I went to Bob's car dealership is it wasn't a chevy dealership anymore I always bought Chevy's Bob had a Honda dealership I said to Bob you communists how can you be selling Honda's you know and he handed me a certificate that showed me that the Honda's on his lot were made in Muirfield Ohio he said go down to the Chevy dealership and see where they're made and I did the Chevy dealership shows me there's a certificate that they're assembled in Mexico I said what happened in the years I was going you know gone what what occurred well of course you see in the beginnings of globalization and the forces of globalization have had in some cases arguably positive effects in some cases negative effects but it seemed like the collapse of the Soviet Union sort of triggered now this international movement not only in in terms of international multinational corporations and business and and in an economic sense but in many other areas I also felt that now we were beginning to see more cooperation but cooperation not necessarily in a positive way we were beginning to see the rise of movements and non-state entities that we had never seen before some of these non-state entities I had run into and some of the operations we conducted nongovernmental organizations doing God's work on the ground reconstructing societies not really identified by any particular national identity non-state entities that we met that were not so good called warlords extremist groups drug cartels and so now we saw a beginning of a new dynamic entities and invite that that could influence things one way or another that did not have capitals and borders or own terrain they were borderless they were movements they were ideologies they were organized internationally to accomplish something good bad or indifferent we have seen since then obviously the rise of the Information Age we have seen the rise of information technology that has changed the world we worry now about a six foot seven Arab living in a cave maybe somewhere in Pakistan that runs a worldwide network on throwaway cell phones in the internet that confounds us and our ability to counter him fully defeat him or find him in some way the rise of Technology has confounded certainly my generation you know I I was in the airport coming up here on Sunday I was in Richmond Virginia where I caught the plane to come here I'm sitting in the at the gate and I'm watching around me people on laptops BlackBerry's and cell phones in one position I saw a man with a laptop a cell phone and a blackberry and a landline he had somehow gotten a hold of and he was doing business I have I have friends in the business world that do not have an office do not have any structure they only own these sorts of things and they make billion-dollar deals i watch the instructions as they pack up get on the airplane and they're told by the flight attendant what they can't use now and what they can use so I can't follow I mean it's just beyond my my understanding and then when we land at Ithaca Airport they're now told what they can turn on and what they have to turn off everybody picks up his cell phone and call somebody I don't know who the hell they're talking to and how many people care that that flight landed in Ithaca I got to admit I reach into my pocket for my cell phone that I never turn on and pretend like I'm talking to somebody because I don't want to feel left out or I'm not part of the crowd that really is cool enough it understands how to use this but it is amazing I mean I this is my 8th chair at a university I also teach at Duke and in my with my students when they sit down they pop their laptops open I don't look at faces I look at the backs of laptops I don't know if they're downloading music or taking notes on my class but this has certainly changed the world and the way we do business now it is the ability to communicate the ability to connect the information technology and the access to other technologies certainly has added to the changes in the world in the last two decades another factor of change have been the diasporas and the migrations to sort of paraphrase the Southwest Airlines ad you are now free to move about the world it was almost as if the collapse of the Soviet Union invited everybody to reposition somewhere you know we know the issues of undocumented or illegal or however we phrase it of the migration south to north here migrations in in Europe and elsewhere but there are massive movements it's changed the nature and identity of our societies many ways I feel for the good when I teach this leadership class at Duke and I talk about 21st century leadership you lead a much more diverse group of people no matter what you do in the world I could look outside my office in the business I have down the corridor and look at about 20 people and they are from all over the United States or from all over the world originally in some way or fashion they are people of color there are people of different ethnic backgrounds it adds a richness to our business that I think wouldn't have been there before but it certainly puts the requirements of leadership in in a different mode because you now don't deal with people that you necessarily have a common background with and you have to understand how to lead in an environment where you have such diversity and almost every aspect of life now we have a much more diverse group of new lead as as I refer to them in my class and these migrations have done all sorts of things I think to enhance societies but also to bring into question identities you know impact on a sense of tribalism and have created frictions as well as positive effects but it is another thing into the mix of change in this new world water we also have seen an increase in failed or incapable states around the world believe me I spent the last 10 years of my life in places like Somalia and the Balkans and northern Iraq when the Kurds were chased out by Saddam and in my time at CENTCOM where I had East Africa Southwest Asia the Middle East I watched states that collapsed there were a near collapse or incapable and became sanctuaries for extremist groups where in order to survive they grow cocoa leaves or poppies warlords dominated and all sorts of problems were generated from these societies that were failing or were incapable or near incapable their agricultural and industrial practices damage the environment their destruction of the rainforests and you watch this this this really sad set of conditions that were that was growing more and more and had global impact it was not local or just remote we have also seen in the last two decades the rise of new powers Brazil a resurgent Russia India China and many more but there has been an alteration in terms of where the power is not necessarily reflected in places like the United Nations in the Security Council which still has a post-world War two structure and identity but there's been a shift and no one fully understands the rise of these new powers and the implication and the relationships that exist and what it means going forward I believe arguably that historians will look back at the beginning of the 21st century and this will be called the era of Islamic or Muslim transformation or transition I really believe that the most significant thing that will happen in this period will be the Islamic world's transition and adjustment to modernity and it's going to be a rocky patch in my view I spent the last 20 years mostly in this part of the world and I think I understand it somewhat it's going through a very difficult adjustment it's going through a combination of of reformation enlightenment Renaissance religious adjustment feeling the impacts of modernity and the impacts of some of the things I mentioned all at once at probably the worst time in history and I really believe you're going to see some elements of the society come through okay some are going to have a very difficult time and some might not make it but it is going to have a global effect not long ago a few years ago I read a statistic in the papers that we had now crossed a line where more human beings lived in cities than they lived outside of cities in rural or remote areas that may not seem like a fact of great importance but to me having seen some of these urban areas and cities I think it is a sign of the kind of problems and instability they're going to be generated in cities that can't cope that have all the problems of large cities without the institutions that deal with their environment and this urbanization of ours our human kind I think are going to have down the road more devastating impact as water supplies dry up is the inability to effectively employ everybody there in these cities provide the basic services we're going to see greater problems in these urban areas the environment has suddenly become an issue I participated in a study with 11 other retired generals and admirals on the security impact of climate change and we took this on because the Center for naval analysis in Washington DC said everybody is looking at climate change and looking at the impact worst-case best-case nobody is taking the next step in saying what are the security implications of the effects of climate change we looked at the science and we sort of bracketed to science we we didn't want to take a position one way or another we sort of looked at within the science there's definitely something happening there's definitely going to be effects of climate change is it a 1 degree Celsius or a 3 degree Celsius when you walk through the impacts that's a difference between tough to manage and hard times to catastrophe as best I could sort out from from the scientists and what would happen we could understand the impacts land loss climate change that affects health conditions water resources drying up sees that now become navigable that weren't before like the Arctic and then we had to do the analysis of the security implications and it was deeply concerning because you see entire populations that will be left without water or without land entire zones that will change from temperate to tropical and and have to cope with diseases and health issues that hadn't known before a rush to maybe mind the resources of the Arctic and what it might mean for the five nations including the u.s. that face off against it and do we have another competition and do we have a another possible confrontation in that area there are many many other things in the last two decades beginning with that fall of the Soviet Union that I observed it affected me so much the two years ago I wrote a book about it and I wrote the book not from the perspective of anyone analyzing all this but someone reporting all this you know I come back as a retired military officer I come back as someone who's worked in in most of the world on diplomatic missions I come back from academia where I work some programs we established joint education systems around the world and I come back as a businessman involved in international business and marketing and business development and I've seen these effects from these four sides and I thought that we have seen a remarkable change in the world and we don't get it I remember reading in Henry Kissinger's book about the reordering of the world five times in in in modern times three times in the last century and it's an interesting study to look back at the last three reorderings the first two came after a world war and in the end of the First World War President Wilson looked at the world and said if we don't do something if we don't get involved if we don't have some impact on changing the conditions that led to this war we're going to repeat this it isn't going to self water and of course he believed in in his 14 points the League of Nations all the ideas he had about changes removing the sources of the problem colonialism militarism imperialism and he did not get an audience or any reaction here it devastated him he had a congress that was basically isolationist and a population that was basically isolationist after World War two we had one of the most remarkable periods in our history that gets little attention we had a Democratic administration on the President Truman and a Republican Congress that certainly there was no love lost between them and you had President Truman you had George Marshall the Secretary of State and others that did an assessment of the world this post world war two world and saw a changed indifferent world with new threats new order and a need to re-examine and prepare a strategy for dealing with it they proposed the Marshall Plan which had less than 19% popular support the American people Marshall gave 84 speeches to convince Americans was the right thing to do we had the formation and the joining of NATO a military alliance totally alien and anything in our past totally contrary to the warnings of Jefferson and Washington about foreign entanglements and committing yourself to something especially in Europe we had the creation of the element banks the IMF we had the creation of National Security Council the Joint Chiefs of Staff the 1947 National Security Act and this Republican Congress and this Democratic administration prepared a strategic vision for the future we knew we had to contain and deter a rising Soviet Union and a China that was communist we knew we had to repair a Europe that was devastated and a Japan that was devastated we knew we had to take a different approach and restructuring our own government to deal with this and the efforts of the marshals and kennen's Vandenberg's the efforts of our Congress and our president and the administration prepared us to deal with that period from then until that collapse I started to talk with at the end of this period because it didn't end with a bang there wasn't this cataclysmic event of a world war we didn't get it and so all these things I mentioned and I could mention another ten slowly but surely coalesced in some sort of perfect storm to produce a very changed world and I would argue a world we don't get or understand yet we are still operating as if we're back in that Cold War era in many many respects all the effects of this have developed a new generation Generation Y the Millennial Generation that manifests you know it's reaction to all these changes in different ways depending on where you are it has created a new form of instability that doesn't stay confined and localized that instability ends up breeding problems that wash up on everybody's Shores that instability is the new threat my definition of instability is when a society cannot cope with a hostile environment it finds itself in that hostile environment can be man-made natural or whatever it can't cope because it doesn't have the institutions they either don't exist or they're incapable and if you want to stabilize societies you need to build capacity and help repair or establish those institutions political economic security institutions humanitarian institutions capacity building and things like rule of law and the ability to tend and take care of itself education systems and this has now become the job of the entire world especially the first world it's not a matter of altruism it's not a matter of feel-good do it out of choice it's a matter of necessity sometimes when I talk about these things to suit middle America when I'm out talking to the food producers of the Midwest or whatever I get a comment in the Q&A a general we better take care of things here first we can't afford to be off doing doing these sorts of things my comment back is tell me what concerns you well it's drugs on my street well who's growing the cocoa leaves and the poppies well it's worried that there might be a terrorist attack well we're are the bases of operation in the sanctuaries in the world well I'm worried about the environment well who's cutting down the rainforests and belching fluorocarbons into the ozone layer somewhere in the world you know almost every worried you can trace back now into this shrunken world or this flat world as Thomas Friedman says although my students say it's bumpy it's not really flat you know that this world now has become so small so interconnected so interdependent that you can't disregard instability generated in some remote area because it will grow it will metastasize in some way and eventually will have its impact and negative effects wash onto your shores in some way and you can't build walls and you can't build and depend on mighty oceans to keep it away you can't become self-dependent you can't become protectionist and think it's going to keep it all away you have to become engaged if I were talking to the new president and he or she asked my opinion about what should be done in the first year of the presidency the sort of set to tone for dealing with this new world I would give the following advice first of all make an assessment and try to truly understand this world you know I hear the terms that still take us back to a world that is long gone you know we talk in terms in terms of Iraq of victory and defeat it's not going to be victory or defeat as we've known it before we still talk in terms that make people believe that we still live and breathe in the 40s 50s 60s and 70s it isn't that way assess this new world understand some of the changes some of which I described but there are many more that are making this an entirely new ordered world economically politically and security sense and in almost every aspect of human endeavor second revived then the importance of strategic design you know there's sort of a cry in Washington where are the marshals they aren't out there anymore the gorge marshals we don't value strategic thinking and strategic planning it used to be the cornerstone of what made us great we understood our role in the world our purpose in the world our direction our vision and how to accomplish it we've become a soundbite society we all have a collective attention deficit disorder we what we watch a debate of presidential candidates and the winner is deemed by who has the snappiest little soundbite or tomorrow's bumper sticker as opposed to a really hard position if the presidential candidate wanted three hours of prime time to give their strategic view of the world we'd be on to American Idol that fast there is no interest in strategic thinking in developing and strategic vision and developing strategic design or planning anymore and therefore if you don't know where you're going anything will get you there we sort of bounced around and it's in coherent fashion we have no real policies no real strategy we one-off everything we deal with the rock we do with the Middle East peace process we deal with Afghanistan in some sort of manner that that makes you think that these are all isolated in incidents that these things are not connected in some way we don't have regional strategies we don't have global strategies we produce a national security strategy that's a salute to motherhood it doesn't set priorities it doesn't allocate resources it doesn't give direction it doesn't allow for the development of programs that would help prevent some of the instability and problems we face it's a statement of values sure it's plenty noble to state your values and what's important but and then what what does it mean the next thing I would advise the president is to try to solve these problems before they become crisis you know we don't want to invest in engagement and development we don't want to take preventative steps foreign aid is a curse helping societies that are beginning to collapse or move into instability and worse yet erupt into crisis we want to wait until the crisis is fully erupted and then what do we do we throw the United States military at it you know and that's all we know how to do and so our military have become nation builders reconstructionists humanitarians peacekeepers everything they were trained not to be you know and and and they do the best they can because nobody else is around to pick up those sorts of pieces my son just came back from Iraq a week ago the year before he was in Afghanistan I said to my son what's the most significant thing you did he's an infantry officer in the Marine Corps he said well we reopened and rehabilitated an oil refinery that's pretty interesting for an infantry battalion certainly skills as an infantry officer I didn't have and he's talking about his interaction with with the locals in Haditha in Anbar province and everything that went on he made no mention in a five and a half hour drive of any military action everything he talked about that was sort of an aside had to do with interacting with the people economic reconstruction the political situation on the ground the cultural differences at the end I asked him before we get out of the car what is it that you needed most that you didn't have when you went there he said I wish I would have had a better understanding of the culture why they do what they do why they think the way they think why the situation is what it is he felt more than equipped to do to conduct his military role he didn't feel equipped to conduct this other role political economic social interaction humanitarian interaction that he was forced to do on the ground I mean before that he was in Afghanistan and faced basically the same thing and so we need to build the programs that are much less costly in human capital and in treasure that prevent these things rather than waiting for the catastrophe to occur we need to think more in that strategic design before we get engaged we need we can't take this simplistic hard power approach to everything I co-chair a Council of 52 retired generals and admins 44 of us are four stars and our council is lobbying the Congress to fund the other elements of power beside the military on an equal basis where are the diplomats where are the political reconstruction is where are the economic reconstruction and it's where are those that are going to do the humanitarian work build the capacity needed on the ground for rule of law governance or whatever you know and what we have failed to do we have failed our own soldiers because we leave them high and dry without some counterpart to be able to do the things that will stabilize a society you know Dave Petraeus said there is no military solution in Iraq of course there's no military solution the military can buy you time it can provide security and then what to do what we never effectively answered that question it was pathetic what the Coalition Provisional Authority under Bremer and the CPA and its predecessor did in Iraq woefully inexperienced unprepared lack of planning and engaging in trying to build a society that had no concept of the cultural background to that society and an understanding of the situation maybe if we'd had that understanding in the beginning we would understood the complexity of this intervention and chose to do something else we need to rebuild relationships mr. and mrs. president relationships around the world that are severely damaged I believe the new president is going to have an advantage because I think there will be a honeymoon period and I think you will see a rush to the door of the new president to say we want you back buddy not back in the way we've had for the last eight years but we want you back we want America back in a positive way in a constructive way we want to engage we want you leading we want you participating but we need you back we can't do without you and we can't have you continue the way you're going we need to build new partnerships in the world you know there are a strange new entities out there that we deal with nongovernmental organizations private volunteer organizations regional and sub-regional political entities we need to be merging these together we need to be working as partners to deal with issues around the world as we confront these factors of instability in these societies that are unstable we need to be the catalyst to help re-energize institutions like the United Nations that need reform and change and and modernization but can be effective if they're brought up to deal with what we face in the 21st century we need to build coalitions coalition's not only to deal with security problems but environmental problems social problems political issues developmental problems the building of capacity around the world in these places that are unstable we need to have a serious conversation with the American people we need to get away from things like politicizing the environment could you imagine that it's a democrat or republican issue whether the we're going to have climate change or not my humble educational background I kind of thought it might been a scientific issue and not a political issue I didn't know it was an issue of being conservative and live as to whether you understand the effects of nature and climate we managed to politicize everything you know and we got to get away from this red-and-blue mentality more importantly the bully pulpit of the presidency has to be used to educate the American people that they don't live in the beginning of the 20th century you live in a shrunken world that's interdependent you can no longer isolate yourself from that world you have to engage in it and some little damn thing in the Balkans is going to affect you and blow up and it is necessary to have that appreciation and understanding that engagement prior to the intervention in the Iraq in Iraq three weeks before the war I testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee I told the committee that there was no imminent threat from Iraq I told the committee that in my view and looking how we're going to go about this military intervention it was going to be a disaster I told them that you could find a situation that's worse than it contains Saddam which they found hard to believe I had one senator say to me general what's the difference as long as we go in and take out Saddam what could be worse I said well senator remember when we went into Afghanistan the first time and we successfully caused the defeat of the Soviet Union and they withdrew and we thought this was a wonderful achievement we left and we let we then had the Taliban and al Qaeda and we had 500,000 refugees in Pakistan which helped to stabilize now tell me what was worse and you're going to face the same thing in Iraq the other point I would like to make to you senator is we don't come home anymore we still have this naive belief that it's the American Expeditionary Force under good-old blackjack Pershing that goes over there does its thing and comes back we haven't come back since the end of World War two we don't come back why do you think we have military structures called Central Command Southern Command Northern Command European Command African command Pacific Command when you make the mess or to use the metaphor that : Powell did when you break the pottery you own it when you touch it you own it you're coming home you're not coming back whatever you lay down and put down on the ground will be yours you can't escape it now and so be careful how you touch it I understand Pottery Barn I have a grandson that's banned from every pottery barn in the United States you know and we need to not apply our foreign policy and our intervention on the same basis part of that informing of the American people needs to be convincing them of this recognition of the interdependence of the world today in almost every aspect it is the same kind of education process that George Marshall did in trying to convince the American people to reach deep in their pockets and fund the rehabilitation of their former enemies hot on the end of a world war and yet leadership was able to accomplish that we should also mr. president transform our military we've been promising to do this since the 2000 election we've been promising to do this and made our first promises back after the collapse of the Soviet Union and we've never successfully transformed our military into the kind of military we need now it is still a rump of a cold war military you could bring back blackjack Pershing and he would recognize this military may be the gun shoot further and the planes fly faster but he'll basically understand it it is not the kind of military we need for the 21st century we do not have the same kind of State Department USAID Department of Commerce and other agencies that are geared for this this new century we've got to change government the way the 1947 National Security Act did we have bloated bureaucracy in Washington when we have a problem our solution to the problem is to create more bloated bureaucracy 9/11 we find out 16 intelligence agencies can't talk to each other what do we do we create a 17th the national intelligence Directorate we find out Homeland Security's insufficient what do we do we create the Department Homeland Security and we see the performance of FEMA you're doing a heck of a job brownie down here in Katrina we have a system of patronage where confidence isn't rewarded political loyalty and supports rewarded so eight of the top 12 FEMA officials have no experience in disaster relief for disaster assistance Brown II was running an Arabian horse association in Colorado before he got to job excellent credentials you know to run FEMA we have a system of earmarks that's ridiculous we fund a study on the mating habits of the sea otter or build bridges to nowhere so you know we have bloated structure that can't react isn't streamlined isn't responsive to the needs that we face today we have a system of rewarding not competence but political loyalty which puts us in a position where we don't have the most competent and the positions we need them and we have a system of earmarks that waste our resources that could be obviously used for better purposes and so mr. president I would say that in your first year in office you need to take a hard look at this world I'm reporting to you as someone for the last almost 20 years has seen the world from the front lines from the foxhole I can't fully interpret this I know one thing all the think tanks in this town of Washington that give you one page papers and strategies for solutions are useless you need to understand this world and its complexity and you need to develop a strategic vision and view you need a structure this government you need to appoint and assign people and ensure along with the Congress that confirms them that we have the most competent people in the world that can work this and you need to build the relationships and connections that this world needs now because it is so small and interdependent thank you very much thank you it's interesting as a side note that thou vipera William fallin has just been pushed out of your old command because he tried to put the brakes on the continued death and destruction bombing Iran and their nuclear facilities which would cause bigger military configuration over there as well as a humanitarian with nuclear pollution over that entire area for thousands of years but I'd like to talk about a little bit other New World Order's bill still in his book the New World Order secret plans Oh ancient plans of secret societies this goes back a long time and it's not about humanitarianism it's about complete control and causing the problems and offering their solutions now you've got different stables in the arena vying for the top position Adolf Hitler an occultist secret society funded by Wall Street he was for the New World Order but it was for his control and his secret society that he went around the world the Soviet Union which was also funded by Wall Street was for the New World Order Stalin was for the New World Order yes would you talk about that New World Order and where they're taking us if you know it's there for you to find if you really want to look at it and it's not anything about what you're talking about they create the problems and offer their solution order out of chaos and it ain't pretty and it's not nice I hope you look into that and hopefully Admiral Fallon will be replaced by someone who is either savvy militarily as you he were or humanitarian that doesn't want to see more death and destruction of our men money and material and the people in the rest of the world thank you yeah go ahead hi thanks for coming I have just two quicker questions that I've been really eager to ask someone with your background and level of experience the military the first one is I'm really interested in your views on this really childish and kind of historically ignorant argument that we all seem to get in every time the civilian leadership of this country recommends military action somewhere anytime anyone seems to speak up and say that maybe we should slow down or consider something else than military action that's sending our troops off to invade or occupy a nation anyone that speaks up really gets kind of pigeon-holed into this idea of being anti-american they hate this country they hate the troops they want them to die and I really resent that and it's very frustrating it seems to go against first of all the idea that this nation exists because we disobeyed Authority because of that notion that sometimes the leadership is wrong and and there you know you've mentioned the Bay of Pigs invasion and you mentioned Vietnam when you were talking about Iraq we have precedents for the fact that they're not always good at their decisions and I guess what I'm asking is what is the real view of the military about that I mean how do people in the military really view it when when progressive people like in this town who are some of the people that I know that speak up the most in defense of the troops when we get just kind of framed as these people that hate this country second question sorry I'll make it quick I need someone to explain to me real quickly if you can the logic with Iraq now people argue about whether or not they really believe WMDs were there and so let's just assume that they believe they were I don't know much about military strategy but from what I've read about WMDs that in a lot of ways they serve first as a deterrent and often as a possible weapon of last resort right if you have nothing left and maybe you use that if that's true and they had an army which had no chance against ours most armies don't what is the logic in sending our troops in if we argued that the man was crazy enough to use them against his own people wouldn't that make sense that he would of course use them against us okay well let me give you my perspective as someone has served 40 years in the military when I was when I was I first joined the military I rose my right hand and swore to defend the Constitution of the United States of America I didn't swear an allegiance to an individual not a king or a presence to the Constitution under that Constitution I swore to defend your right freedom to speech and if you don't exercise that right you're letting me down regardless of what your views are so from my perspective and and my friends that have served in the military with me you have the right to speak out you would you would be disappointing us if we are sacrificing to protect that right if you didn't exercise it first question okay the second question about Iraq WMD I actually did work for the Central Intelligence Agency on Iraq Intelligence right up to the day of the war I can tell you I saw the intelligence I can tell you there was no threat from WMD I can tell you I testified to that effect three weeks before the war senator lugar asked me if there was an imminent threat in the public hearing and I said there is not you know in my assessment and I don't believe the intervention in Iraq had anything to do with WMD as a threat I honestly believe and this is my opinion now I I don't have any inside knowledge of this but I honestly believe that we had an administration that was jolted shocked traumatized by 9/11 I think that the obvious going into Afghanistan and chasing al-qaeda you know that was a given I think that they were looking for something more dramatic to do a sense that we are extremely vulnerable a sense that the attack could happen again we were totally surprised by this we didn't understand the scope of the and I think without a strategy and understanding of the region when you had a certain groups that came forward and said we have an idea that if you take down a regime like Saddam's you have the possibility of igniting the fires of democracy which will sweep across the region now if you don't know the region if you don't understand the military and and and war fighting if you have no concept of the culture you're dealing with that may sound like a wonderful siren song played out of the neocon you know think tanks in Washington and I think unfortunately the senior leadership in the administration but bit on it on it despite a number of us saying it isn't going to be that way first of all this is not a threat you're losing focus on what's important second of all you're gonna unleash hell when you go in there it's not going to be a liberation flowers in the street cakewalk it's going to be a disaster because you're doing with too few troops lack of understanding of what you're going to find in there in a fragile society that is so broken that you're going to see ethnic and religious rivalries things pour across that border things rise up from inside that are going to cause you to have the problems that you've had and we said those things but I honestly believe really and truly it had nothing to do with WMD in all honesty I want to thank you very much for your speech I really enjoyed it one quick thought and then the question is I don't own a cell phone and I really appreciated what you said about cell phones and laptops I know this is a very intellectual community here on campus but don't be afraid not to open your cell phone amongst the crowd that does because for me this is what what's happening in the world is very symbolic of the breakdown of the world this is not a healthy thing we're doing in the wireless technology we don't know what effects it has anyway I would love to sit down and talk to you for a long time because I'm very impressed by you know I mean that as a general coming here and and saying what you said today really impressed me the question is this administration is very criminal and you've been very kind in your last words about them but I think they knew what they were doing and they created a mess such a mess that has created more terrorism and destabilization in the world and not only in Iraq but with the relations with other countries so my question is how are we going to turn this around and will you advise the next president because I think you have a lot of words of wisdom and how are we going to get out of Iraq your your your knowledge of how we can get out of Iraq anything else you want to add well I think my view regardless of who's president you will see us change our involvement in Iraq I didn't say withdrawal but I don't want to imply there's going to be combat troops patrolling the streets of Baghdad because I don't think American people would support that and I think we're beyond that point anyway I think that we have certain obligations regardless of whether you change administrations I want to say one thing before I finish the answer this question I travel around the world a lot and I talked to many of the leaders in the world many of the people that that are powerful in my last set of travels in the last few months I've heard something I've never heard before I heard people doubting the ability of the United States to get things done to manage things to manage it successfully I never heard that before as a matter of fact when I was at CENTCOM and when I traveled around the world in any region you had to convince people that America was an omnipotent that we could do everything you had to say no no we're not that good you know oh you could do anything you Americans now they begin to wonder in doubt the second thing that bothers me and resonates is our enemies are saying Americans won't stick to it are not good allies look at Vietnam look at Beirut look at Somalia look at Yemen and the Cole bombing they've never had a ship back in the port despite other ships from navies around the world go in there look at the Khobar towers bombing in the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia they ran away from Saudi Arabia you know and they go through this litany of events where we got our nose bloody and we cut out and quit and they they have them I'm speaking as they would describe it and they're saying now look at Iraq they caused this mess and now the climber is to leave and get out and it doesn't matter if it's a hard-line a Conservative government Ronald Reagan pulled out of Beirut Nixon pulled out of Vietnam you know and it doesn't matter if it's a Liberal Democratic administration Clinton pulled out of Somalia and and the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia and the port of Aden in Yemen you know so it doesn't matter it's in their nature they will let you down and they'll use this excuse that was the last administration this is a new administration I don't owe any time no obligation as an American to what happened in to Iraq and that bothers me a little bit I was opposed to the ROK intervention I thought it was the wrong war wrong place wrong time I certainly thought the military way we were doing this was dead wrong from 40 years of experience but I will tell you we Americans made this mess and we don't know how to clean it up I would now ensure that we continue the security assistance to the Iraqi security forces we owe them that training education the material that they need to provide the security as best they can they're going to have a rough road ahead I would ensure that we help with economic development I would have our president talk to those in the region now with a new face on the presidency saying we need to come together this is not only our problem it's your problem in the region if this becomes a sanctuary for extremists if a religious war between Shia and Sunni and Persian an Arab in Rupp it will impact the entire region we need to come together now we need to consult together which will be refreshing for them instead of being told what to do or brushed aside and as I said before the new president I think is going to have people that want to see the leadership in the engagement the worst thing we can do is say another disaster or mistake we've had Democrats have disasters in mistakes beginning with Vietnam and we have had Republicans have disasters in the States this isn't a political issue of liberal and conservative this is an issue of what we stand for we cannot continue to be involved in Iraq in the way we are now that's a given we could because it is not effective it is tremendously expensive both in in human lives and in Treasury we need to change it but I will tell you this we cannot continue to abandon commitments to let down allies we cannot continue to do what we did in Afghanistan the first time around yeah we came in we gave Stinger missiles through all the Afghan guerrillas we knocked down Soviet helicopters we caused them to have their Vietnam and retreat and then we walked away and left hundreds of thousands of refugees a dismantled and disassembled Afghanistan right for the Taliban and al-qaida and an other extremists to take over this this unstable society that we generated and cost and I'm saying that I understand your passion look my son has been in Afghanistan my son has been Iraq and I've sweated and worried about him where he's been I've been shot and wounded three times I understand what it's all about but I'll tell you one thing we've got to decide what we stand for we cannot continue going around the world making a mess and then internally agonizing over it and leaving it you know based on some noble principle that that's not done on our watch and therefore we have no obligation and we're better than that we do it in the name of our country like it or not whether you voted for the last guy or not and we have an obligation to fix it I hope you heard my speech about changing the way our approaches about fixing what we have done and about engaging in a different way again you can't run away and lock your doors you can't build that wall across the Canadian and Mexican borders you can't defend a shoreline to shore lines that are massive and long you can't become self-sufficient in energy you can't put restrictions on trade you know and have a Buy America policy and nobody else is allowed in and you can't invest in our country you can't have a way of getting access to resources on your terms only without a level playing field this is the message I'm taking you from seeing the world out there it's not a political statement in any way it just reflects the reality I saw and so we are going to have to live with the rock I would say that I think we can live with an Iraq in a different way without the casualties and the costs and the treasure but it's going to take monumental work a tremendous amount of leadership and a tremendous amount of cooperation of partnership building by the next president thank you I had a quick question you said you would not get involved in politics in the past has that changed and okay even if you were shortlisted say for now that's a rumor no okay there's no truth in it I believe that okay could I have one specific example of a type of reengagement you would suggest to a new president getting read in Kyoto or emissions controls internationally some gesture that would speak to America is getting back involved with things could you mention yeah I think you picked a good one I think is a serious cooperation on the environment I think we're past the at least most sane people to understanding there is a threat and it's coming faster than we may have imagined I think where we have the most unstable parts of the world let's say the Middle East where we build the partnerships you know we had here interesting thing to me because I served as US Central Command we have had treaty arrangements and security alliances and collective agreements for Europe for Southeast Asia for almost every place in the world the most volatile part of the world we have no security arrangement you know and and we have dictated the security in this part of the world since the Brits left in 1971 so it might be time to look at some sort of security arrangement some sort of collective application it certainly would be more in line with our ability to share the burden and have a more cooperative effort in how we do it instead of unilaterally taking it on so that's the second thing I would do is look at building the kinds of collective security arrangements in the regions that are most threatened you know I think we need to renew old partnerships you know NATO is in danger it's at a defining moment in Afghanistan if it can't stand up to this challenge we need to re-energize NATO we need to reform and change and help develop a UN that's responsive you know to the needs of the world yeah even in our own hemisphere you know which we'd neglect and and unfortunately you know bear the consequences of what happens we need to build the relationships we need to have an understanding about economic partnerships and relationships we can't decide about trade agreements or anything else and understand the impact very few of us even economists have a hard time explaining and understanding the advantages and disadvantages to trade agreements and and and how these things might work you know so the American people are subject to whatever political whim or some sort of spin that can be put on this it's like you know there are many many things and much of it beyond my skill and my understanding and intellect to do but it can't be business as usual I'd like to ask you to follow up if you will on your comments that you see a transformation coming into the Islamic would let me put my question in the context as in muslim-american and as an educator who's been working with muslims and arabs for a last 40 years i just came back from syria jordan and france on a research trip and the most opinion has been or the majority of the opinion is that very very lack of hope that there will be any positive change and people are going even further negatively with the religious transformation so would you please give us a more positive light on that yes you know i it depends you obviously look at it now and you will see you can certainly see the glass is the empty part of the glass or you can look down and see parts of the glass that are becoming more full you know i see signs hopeful signs in this part of the world i i don't want to be you know pollyannish about this or overly optimistic but i see the role of women changing in some parts of this world the Ambassador from Oman to the United States is a woman you know the Finance Minister of the United Arab Emirates is a woman I see in some places where Parliament's have been created and some of the the authority from the Emir or the King has been passed to the Parliament women have the right to vote and run for office I always tell my American friends how many American women have been president of the United States how many Muslim women have been head of state can you answer that yeah I can name five go back and do your homework to figure it out who had their own Islamic state point of view I would say Indonesia Turkey Sri Lanka Pakistan they had women that that and and who had the right to vote first Muslim women or American women go to Azerbaijan and you'll find out they had the right to vote before American women so to say the society inherently has something about it culturally religiously that makes it unable to adapt or change or morph nah I didn't say it would be easy I said it's gonna be in some in some societies in the Muslim world we'll have a more difficult time I do not think it's impossible I think it's an issue of education it's an issue of global cooperation and work in patience on this you know and I think the reforms will come and the changes will come if the society needs to help itself more because you have a very uneven Muslim society you have tremendously wealthy Muslim societies in the Gulf and tremendously poor elsewhere there needs to be some sort of collective view and how to get it it is not a religion as you know better than I that has some sort of central a few of establishing the doctrine you know it is a decentralized religion by nature and so it has difficulty establishing itself there isn't a Vatican you know there isn't a Council of Bishops and so it's it's much more difficult for this transformation the views of the religion very you know and there's degrees of secularism and there's degrees of fundamentalism that not necessarily put everybody in a violent end of it in some ways I said that this first half of this century will be the era of Islamic transformation I didn't make real predictions about it other than I said I see some societies within the Muslim world that actually come through this pretty well and others will have a lot of trouble getting through it I don't have a formula you know the Pope didn't give me one in my religious beliefs you know and and and how to handle this he probably added to the problem you know but thank you thanks general for coming I myself I served in the US Army for four years I was with the 10th Mountain Division up at Fort Drum served as the infantryman in Iraq first of all I would say you talked a lot about the transformation of the Arab world and like from what I've seen from my personal experience under with Iraq under US occupation first of all when I was there Iraqis had power for maybe two hours a day I was in the cities of Abu Ghraib and I was right outside of Fallujah and you know there was no real sewage system for people of Iraq and none of that and I think the most disheartening thing for me coming home was that none of that changed from the beginning when we were told that we were going there to help the Iraqi people in 2005 and none of that really changed by the time I got home um so first of all I would just like to thank you for for what you said before the war started and I wish more people would have listened but I think you know you are right that that Iraq that Iraq is not going successfully right now we've seen with the rise of al Sadr what's happening in Basra that Iraqis are very angry at the at the under occupation and that they're willing to fight back even you know five years into occupation and I think like the way that I feel as a veteran I feel like the best way to to support the troops is to bring them home and give them the care that they need so tonight at seven o'clock over at UM Lewis auditorium and goal in Smith building we're gonna be having a witness winter soldier tribunal and my question was I just wanted to what was really a question but I wanted I wanted to I wanted to invite you general to come to come see our testimony as boots on the ground as young enlisted soldiers and NCOs to come see what our story is and understand where we're coming from so I'd like to invite you to that sure yeah be glad to you know I I want to go back to my son I asked him I said what's it in your view what's it all about on the ground where obviously you experience where the boots are he said it's about tribes power guns money and jobs you have to address those five elements now listen to that voice from the ground and what you just heard and then listen to the policymakers in their views and their sort of exalted view of you know in trying to measure the progress on democracy and an establishing free market economy you know economies there's some sort of hierarchy and needs here that you have to get down and deal with in structure the idea that you go into a society that has become so fractured and fragmented and your emphasis is on dipping your finger in a bottle of ink and claiming democracy is ridiculous when they don't have a job and they don't know where the next meal comes from and the power isn't on and the waters polluted and they can't send their kids to school for fear of being shot you know Jeffersonian democracy is kind of out there maybe a little priority number 38 somewhere and that sort of list and that's where we get it wrong it's not dealing with basic needs first building confidence and trust and then building toward maybe a fundamentally representative government and and down the road a long way off because it's a very sophisticated process you might reach something that looks like democracy but that's years maybe decades away before it can happen and it's this is sort of naivete from Washington of not understanding what you just heard from this veteran from the tenth Mountain Division you know about what it's like on the ground where he's saying the people in front of me need basic security basic services need basic confidence in what's going on and if you want to build this from the bottom up you have to address those issues Baghdad is about as relevant to Ambar province as Washington is to East cupcake Montana you know and and and less probably you know and so we can't judge progress by what goes on in Baghdad and what leaders tell us that are trying to do something that's noble you know that's that that's abstract and has no real impact on the people on the ground yes first of all general I'd like to thank you for both your service to this country and coming to talk to us my question is a bit more specific after World War two one could argue that it was easier for Americans to pick up the burden of being the global hegemon because we were entering a period of previously unseen and not in not seeing since economic growth and prosperity and that the dollar was the currency of freedom around the world basically and we are entering it into a very different time the dollar is decreasing in popularity we were in a recession right now john mccain is you know admitted himself and i was wondering if you could quickly how would you address the average american from a fiscal perspective that you know we do need to you know put out these little fires in different region of the world before they erupt in into conflict cuz it does seem like economically the realities are very different now than they were compared to at the end of World War two well I would say a couple of things this intervention waiting until the Isis erupted cost you billions and trillions of dollars if you wonder if you if you say you can't afford the hundreds of thousands to the millions single-digit millions of dollars in engagement in development programs to prevent this and you want to wait to the hundreds of billions and trillion dollars well you know that's like saying I'm not gonna buy flood insurance even though I live in a flood plain I'll let the waters come because I can't afford the flood insurance really then how can you afford the crisis you know for the amount of money we spent in Iraq we could have owned that country Saddam could have been sunbathing on the Riviera somewhere in exile and we could have owned that country bought it and everybody and if you spread the money out amongst the population they'd have all been wealthy enough to exist and beside that look at how we spend our own money I mean I I talked about earmarks and the way spending it is done here are we truly allocating the resources in a way that best meet our needs that best meet the needs that that that we think ensure our security ensure our prosperity you know that are in the best interest of what we want to promote around the world I said that that's what I would tell this president that that he or she needs to examine it's easy to say we can't afford it until you look at the things we seem to be able to afford you know which to me seemed to be much more wasteful and and the point I made about investing in preventive measures which are much more teeth down the road then then waiting for the crisis and then investing in a very expensive tool the US military and in a very expensive kind of mission in reconstructing failed and totally collapsed societies when maybe the preventive way would have been to help patch up or support or establish some institutions when you began to see the cracks you know so I think it's an issue of of taking a broader look at our resources and how they're allocated and applied okay thank you thank you general thank you for your service yes sir I wanted to mention I'd been in 36 countries speaking around the world I've been around the horn and I remember what Wilson said about military and what Dwight Eisenhower said about the military-industrial complex and if I were speaking to that president-elect I would say president there's a country in the world that has 737 military bases in foreign countries in 142 foreign countries that has to be eliminated step number one take the money that's saved from that because that's the United States four hundred and fifty billion dollars leave a hundred and fifty billion for our defense use that four hundred fifty billion dollars to build nuclear reactors and windmills and in ten years we would be totally energy independent no problem we're just missing the money away good afternoon general thank you for coming I'm a gold star system myself although my brother died stateside I'd like to ask you and follow up on some other questions you indicated in your comments that I recently read your article your interview with Mother Jones magazine when you were asked earlier about how we could get out of Iraq you suggested very strongly that it's not going to be possible as you did in this article you said we were going to have to stay there and finish finish our commitment complete our commitment and today you've spoken about the Civil and Administrative and governmental aspects of that supposed to military in this article you also pointed out how you people the citizens of this country can't rely on experts the citizens of this country have to remain informed about the International issues than crises that were confronted with and have to take responsibility ourselves for directing our country in our policy how can we do that when our government lies to us and is that not being lied to in a matter of war why would that not be a high crime in this demeanor well you know I I would say to you I get a question almost every time I speak about what can we do we meaning the people well first of all and you hit on part of it be better informed do you think we're you you think as a society we're as informed about this how can we be as informed as we should be and be as confident about our information when our government lies to us it you know your sources of information are beyond just your government whether they're lying or not if you say that that sounds like something out of some sort of authoritarian regime that the only information I get is from my government my god in this day and age I just described all these electronic you know the internet and and and you know my students when we were when the Iraq war was starting my students at William and Mary were because it was a class on international relations following the war they want to know how to follow the war I said here's what I want you to do pick a US cable network Fox CNN and MSNBC whatever pick a newspaper New York Times Washington Post whatever it is prominent national newspaper then I want you to listen to BBC I want you to read The Economist and the Financial Times then every night I want you to go online and download english-language arab newspapers and read their editorial pages where it relates to the war in Iraq they came back to me and said which war is it there's three wars out there or four Wars or five Wars you know and I said but you're a I don't know which war it is I don't know who's right or wrong I don't know whose shading the truth spinning it telling you a lie or is accurate but I'm telling you the information is out there and are you energized enough to go after it how do you know your government's lying to you unless you go out and seek the truth well and in this day and age the truth is the truth is out there some you know it you cannot keep things a secret you cannot I mean your government could have told you it found W and date do you think that would have lasted very long you know I mean and to say that my governments my only source of information and it's lying you know presupposes that that's your only source of information I would say that shouldn't be only source of information I was on the border hungry and read a Soviet publication in English and I couldn't tell the difference between the Soviet publication talking about the Cold War and villainize in the United States versus the United States doing the same thing Soviet Union they sounded much less tell me you know I you know that our media isn't perfect but I said Caesar and I'm asking how do we cope with the situation where despite vote amount as much why not mean that's what's great about our country and you know vote you said that you didn't believe that they went into Iraq as a result of weapons of mass destruction but rather than as a result of 9/11 they were a little bit shocked and that's my view I was have no way of people who came to them and suggested that an invasion would result in you know people come in more democracy you may have been referring to the character to lobby and I wanted to ask you to what extent we went into and you also said in this article I read that Iraq was already contained before so what was the point in going to name to what extent did we go into Iraq to contain Iran and to what extent did the misleading guidance we got from Shalaby influence that decision and maybe lead to a wrong decision well I think it's obvious that Shalaby was was a con artist and I think it's obviously the sources that he provided on the information we were catering to an agenda that he had I also think that sure the intervention in Iraq was to counter Iranian hegemony and and this sort of naive belief that democracy was going to spring up and it was going to change the character of the Middle East naive you know and not founded on understanding and the depth of understanding and and the appreciation for the complexity of the environment you know and and our government was guilty of that and we have the privilege of removing them if we don't like it you know and and that's our alternative but we also have the a remarkable world today that brings us information from all over I really believe we have a remarkable media I get upset with it you know there's there's media that's on the Left there's media on the right there's media that panders to the government there's media that's against the government no matter what but you know there is this isn't a state-owned media far from it and we have every brand every flavor that we want I think that's great i I find that our media in the United States is the best most discipline despite all the flaws it may have it has the highest degree of self policing that I see in any media around the world you know even in other developed countries so you know it's not perfect but the information is there if we want it

Channel: UChannel

Views: 38,622

Keywords: uchannel, cornell, politics, u.s., world, global, international, relations, public, affairs, analysis

Id: zCSmMPsFHOU

Length: 86min 44sec (5204 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 04 2008