Declassified Documents Expose Why 9/11 Happened and The Masterminds Behind it

Watch this documentary, Hijacking Catastrophe - 9/11, Fear & the Selling of American Empire.

The 9/11 terror attacks continue to send shock waves through the American political system. Continuing fears about American vulnerability alternate with images of American military prowess and patriotic bravado in a transformed media landscape charged with emotion and starved for information. The result is that we have had little detailed debate about the radical turn US policy has taken since 9/11.

Hijacking Catastrophe places the Bush Administration's original justifications for war in Iraq within the larger context of a two-decade struggle by neo-conservatives to dramatically increase military spending while projecting American power and influence globally by means of force and dominance.

At the same time, the documentary argues that the Bush Administration has sold this radical and controversial plan for aggressive American military intervention by deliberately manipulating intelligence, political imagery, and the fears of the American people after 9/11.

This update of the critically acclaimed documentary features the theatrical version of the film, along with ten new post-election interviews with prominent political observers on topics ranging from the 2004 presidential campaign to the Democratic Party's struggle to define itself in a time of war. 

















they have weapons of mass destruction that is what this war was a balance 1:13 Saddam Hussein possesses biological chemical weapons in fact that there are 1:16 weapons there 1:17 you've heard the president say repeatedly that he has chemical and 1:19 biological weapons and Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological 1:23 weapons and he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon Iraq has a 1:28 growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles high-strength aluminum 1:32 tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production thousands of tons of chemical 1:38 agents 500 tons of sarin and mustard and VX nerve agent continues to possess and 1:45 conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised the British government has 1:50 learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium 1:54 from Africa 1:56 there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction they 2:00 have weapons of mass destruction that is what this war was a ballot 2:04 there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends against 2:09 our allies and against us 2:11 Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass 2:17 destruction 2:23 they have weapons of mass destruction that is what this war was about it 2:42 ok 2:48 where r saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction for chief weapons inspector 2:53 David case at last week quote we were all wrong about Saddam's WMD the world 2:58 knows there was a massive intelligence failure in the war on Iraq President 3:02 Bush and other country failure to find Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass 3:06 destruction has raised serious questions about the legitimacy and legality of the 3:11 ongoing war in Iran but as both American and Iraqi casualties escalate and as the 3:17 conflict becomes more chaotic and deadly by the day debate within the United 3:22 States continues to focus narrowly on whether American intelligence agencies 3:27 provided accurate enough information to justify going to war in the process a 3:34 larger question has been all but ignored if the war was not about weapons of mass 3:39 destruction 3:40 what is it really about I keep asking the questions of why 3:45 how was this incident even have a purpose 3:49 for sewing this question forces us to consider a different story 3:54 it is a story that begins as the cold war ends a story about a group of 4:02 self-identified radical conservatives at the right we extreme of the Republican 4:07 Party a group of intellectuals and policymakers who saw the fall of the 4:11 Soviet Union and communism not as an opportunity to scale back America's Cold 4:16 War military machine but as an opportunity to build up its size and 4:20 scale to use military force more aggressively and unilaterally to 4:25 construct a new unchallenged American Empire is this kind of ideology that has 4:32 grown up in the wake of the Cold War propounded quite openly bi what we are 4:38 calling neoconservatives in America that identifies United States as a colossus a 4:44 fort the world a new Rome beyond good and evil 4:48 we no longer need friends we don't need international law like the old Roman 4:55 phrase it doesn't matter whether they loved us are not so long as they fear us 5:00 ok 5:06 he after me and George Walker Bush do something george w bush took office in 5:12 two thousand he brought with him some of the most conservative foreign policy 5:16 voices and the Republican Party chief among them were Vice President Dick 5:21 Cheney Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and deputy secretary for 5:26 defence paul wolfowitz all of whom had served together previously in the 5:31 administration's of ronald reagan and george HW bush 5:35 paul wolfowitz in particular had long been recognized as the intellectual 5:42 force behind a radical neoconservative fringe of the republican party four 5:47 years 5:48 Wolfowitz had been advancing the idea that the United States should reconsider 5:52 its commitments to international treaties international law and 5:56 multilateral organizations such as the United Nations you know so this is of 6:01 not just a republican takeover this is a very specific wing of the Republican 6:07 Party 6:07 it's neoconservative its unilateral list it doesn't believe in the rule of law 6:12 it doesn't believe you have to tell the public the truth and I happened to be 6:16 extremely arrogant dangerous group of reactionary status 6:24 they're not conservatives have a political agenda was some God's to 6:28 foreign policy and if they had been working on for years and years and in 6:32 writing about this and in saying this is the post-cold war vision this is our 6:38 post Cold War vision for American power 6:41 ever since the Cold War ended there were people who are fuming on the right 6:45 thinking this is the golden opportunity now the rush is out of the way for 6:50 America to take over the world we're not doing anything about it 6:52 those damn liberals those softheads are keeping us from doing what is our godly 6:57 mission a radical plan for American military domination first surface during 7:02 the administration of george HW bush 7:04 in 1992 paul wolfowitz working in the department of defense was asked to write 7:11 the first draft of a new national security strategy a document entitled 7:16 the defense planning guidance the most controversial elements of what would 7:21 later come to be known as the Wolfowitz doctrine where that the United States 7:26 should dramatically increase defense spending that it should be willing to 7:30 take pre-emptive military action and that it should be willing to use 7:34 military force unilaterally with or without allies this new reliance on 7:39 military force was necessary 7:41 according to Wolfowitz to prevent the emergence of any future or potential 7:46 rivals to American power and to secure access to vital resources especially 7:51 persian gulf oil 7:54 this caused uproar when it was leaked and the Europeans got upset and people 7:59 are Colin Powell and george herbert walker bush and some extent even change 8:02 said you know this is kind of out there guys you gotta get going to turn that 8:05 down 8:06 because you know the end of the Cold War is not necessarily a green light for us 8:09 to go ballistic and you know building up our military and then pushing countries 8:14 around using he knows the sword rather than diplomacy it but this these guys 8:19 never let go of that William out of power during the clinton presidency 8:23 Wolfowitz and his colleagues affiliated themselves with a number of influential 8:28 conservative think tanks in two thousand they would craft yet another proposed 8:33 national security strategy this one published by right-wing think-tank 8:37 calling itself the project for the new American Century 8:41 at its core the document revived the Wolfowitz doctorate it called on the 8:48 United States to increase the military budget by up to a hundred billion 8:52 dollars to deny other nations the use of outer space and to adopt a more 8:59 aggressive and unilateral foreign policy that would allow the United States to 9:03 act offensively and preemptively in the world 9:06 the elimination of states like Iraq figured prominently in this grand vision 9:11 they were coming out against the policy of every American president from nicks 9:18 and to clinton to even george bush in his first year they wanted to change 9:23 that 9:24 but even these hardline conservatives knew that the Wolfowitz doctrine was 9:29 likely to radical to win the support of the foreign policy establishment their 9:34 own Republican Party and the American people and their defining document 9:39 written in September of two thousand a full year before nine eleven they 9:44 acknowledge that the process of transformation even if it brings 9:49 revolutionary change is likely to be a long one absent in their own chilling 9:55 words some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor 10:00 one year later that event would arrive 10:22 yeah 10:25 I didn't look any more than I turned everyone 10:30 people just call people doctor listen ways and people to be 10:45 everyone crazy 11:04 after nine eleven we have a very clear experience of what terrorism is and 11:12 people should feel afraid the question is what policies will make us more safe 11:17 so the fear is legitimate but it is manipulated and that's the core of the 11:21 bush policy to manipulate that fear there will be no going back to the era 11:25 before sep tember the 11 2001 to false comfort in a dangerous world been born 11:32 New Yorker 11:33 all my life I've lived here all my life so for me was a powerful personal event 11:38 what I remember what I think it taught of course my first reaction was fear 11:43 anger rage vengeance 11:45 I think all of us for human had that reaction 11:49 the question for all of us is what we remember and what we do with the members 11:54 what is the lesson what does it tell what does it teach for the president it 11:59 teaches the lesson of the axis of evil states like these and their terrorist 12:04 allies constitute an axis of evil and teaches the lesson that America has 12:09 enemies secret dangerous enemies who have to be taken out our enemy is a 12:13 radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them 12:18 it teaches the lesson that we can never be week we have to flex our muscles at 12:22 every turn we will fight with the full force and might of the United States 12:26 military 12:27 that's one kind of lesson it creates a politics of fear 12:31 we have every reason to assume the worst 12:34 yeah 12:41 if you look at say FDR saying you 12:45 the only thing you have to fear is fear itself the kind of tasks it 12:49 counterpoint to that from the bush administration after 9-11 was the only 12:54 thing you have to fear is not enough fear we still have a dangerous world and 12:59 that's very important for I think the people understand where i'm coming from 13:03 to know that this is a dangerous world 13:06 we discussed the need to prepare for a full range of asymmetric threats 13:10 including terrorism cyberattacks advanced conventional weapons cruise 13:16 missiles ballistic missiles and certainly weapons of mass destruction 13:20 this is a gang that that that needs people to be afraid it's a gang that 13:25 really can't have any political success whatsoever 13:29 you know in a state of tranquility and peace of mind 13:34 Tom Ridge convinced 13:37 terrorists will try to hit america for the politics of fear that this 13:41 administration has deployed and tried to respond to terrorism has itself in some 13:45 ways been much more dangerous and terrorism itself and this administration 13:48 has been 13:49 I think responsible for inciting the very terror that it was a terrorist 13:55 purpose to incite in America 13:58 Code Orange plus the Fed's decision to raise the terror alert - hi America on 14:05 high alert from biggest cities to the smallest town red yellow orange were 14:10 afraid be afraid what level of fear the government can program that without any 14:14 justification 14:15 you know we have intelligence support to terrorists are about to attack 14:19 who we don't know where we don't know what we don't know but you tell us so 14:23 now we're afraid 14:25 a Connecticut man rapping his family's 19th century farmhouse with plastic 14:29 ceiling it in duct tape and then in the same breath you know all the smoke still 14:35 rising out of the ruins of the world trade center and now the Pentagon were 14:39 told that this is gone beyond simply 19 men hijacking for airplanes 14:45 this is turned into a global conspiracy against the united states that must be 14:49 confronted militarily one has to say it's not just simply a matter of 14:52 capturing people and holding them accountable but removing the sanctuary 14:56 is removing the support systems ending state-sponsored terrorism terrorism and 15:02 worked great nation to allow the evildoers to affect our soul 15:08 the decision was made within the administration to take this event to 15:12 take the struggle against al-qaeda and make it into a full-fledged struggle 15:17 against good and evil 15:18 either you're with us or you are with the terrorists 15:24 the important thing to remember here is one didn't have to put it in these terms 15:27 what didn't have to say if you're not for us on our side you're on the side of 15:32 the terrorists that was not a necessary response that was a chosen response 15:36 within a year of 911 in a charge climate of fear anxiety and lingering outrage 15:43 over the attacks on the world trade center 15:46 George W Bush traveled to West Point to announce the basic elements of his own 15:51 new national security strategy 15:53 invoking the memory of the 911 terror attacks 15:57 he made the Wolfowitz doctrine official US policy in the process 16:02 setting the stage for US invasion of Iraq we must take the battle to the 16:06 enemy disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge 16:13 it was a brazen announcement that the United States now officially rejected 16:17 article 51 of the UN Charter a cornerstone of international law enacted 16:23 after world war two 16:24 and used to convict Nazis of war crimes at the Nuremberg trials a law designed 16:30 explicitly to prevent nations from using military force to advance their own 16:35 sense of national and moral superiority and to prevent the kind of unprovoked 16:40 so-called pre-emptive wars of aggression that ravaged the world over the first 16:45 half of the 20th century and our security require all Americans to be 16:50 forward-looking and resolute to be ready for pre-emptive action 16:55 it moves for the first time in its history moves the United States outside 17:00 of the compass of international law away from article 15 one of the United 17:05 Nations Charter and says in effect 17:08 united states will make war at a time and place of its choosing against 17:11 enemies that it declares its enemies 17:13 based on its own perception of what the threats are 17:17 it was hailed as a new strategy but it was based on old ideas 17:22 it marked the culmination of a relentless campaign by radical 17:26 conservatives to change the very nature of American foreign policy to use 17:31 unrivaled American military power to shape the globe and the 21st century 17:35 itself in the image of the United States to create in their own words a new 17:42 american century and this is strange notion actually that people think that 17:47 the whole world could believe in the same time it's 2003 for everybody will 17:52 be 2,000 for everybody but that you know that America has no territorial bounce 17:57 but that actually time belongs to America 18:01 they want the USA to outdo all previous empires and its longevity been its 18:08 permanence 18:09 which for all their work in college and all their why reading is is is an insane 18:16 and insane program 18:20 yeah yeah what does it have to do with the Constitution what does that have to 18:24 do with democracy 18:25 what does that have to do with the pursuit of happiness nothing it's about 18:28 power it's about domination 18:31 it's about control of dwindling resources 18:41 I understand that they want the American public to believe that the invasion of 18:46 Iraq was the response to sep tember 11 I think it is a lie 18:50 I believe that it is part of a neo conservative agenda to assert that 18:56 American hegemony is untouchable and sep tember 11 gave them the opportunity to 19:02 put in play plants that they had been considering since the first Bush 19:05 administration in all of its previous incarnations and long before nine eleven 19:11 and the current war on terror 19:13 the Wolfowitz doctrine had identified regime change in Iraq as a crucial first 19:18 step toward global domination by force 19:21 in a widely circulated letter to President Bill Clinton in 1998 the 19:26 members of the project for the new American Century challenge the President 19:30 to act forcefully and militarily to remove Saddam Hussein from power 19:35 two years later George W Bush would handpick many of these same 19:39 neoconservatives for key foreign policy post and the Pentagon and State 19:43 Department 19:44 once installed in government positions as recent interviews with a number of 19:49 former members of the Bush administration have revealed the group 19:52 maintained its long-standing focus on Iraq a focus that intensified after the 19:58 attacks of sep tember 11 in the meetings of the inner sanctum of the Bush 20:03 administration the attack on iraq was brought up from almost the first days 20:07 even though there was no evidence whatever that the Iraqis have been 20:10 involved in this 20:11 the president drag me into a a room with a couple of other people shut the door 20:16 and said I want you to find whether Iraq did this 20:22 the george bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this 20:27 from the very beginning there was a conviction 20:31 how that saddam hussein was a bad person 20:34 and that he needed to go just five hours after american airlines flight 77 struck 20:41 the Pentagon and without any evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the attacks of 20:45 911 20:47 defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld was already ordering his age to draw plans 20:51 for striking Iraq the notes quote Rumsfeld is saying he wanted best info 20:57 fast 20:58 judge whether good enough hit Sh meaning Saddam Hussein go massive rumfelt 21:06 continued in the notes 21:07 sweep it all up things related and not the the problem for the bush 21:13 administration is that plans that already existed for regime change in 21:17 Iraq had to be justified 21:19 they couldn't just go in without a public support the public support was 21:24 created by connecting Saddam Hussein to those fears of terrorism the fear 21:29 generated by nine eleven the fear of terrorist networks has to be transferred 21:33 to Iraq 21:35 that is the American people have to learn to be as afraid of Saddam Hussein 21:38 as they are of Osama bin Laden 21:41 soon after sep tember 11 defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld set up a small 21:46 intelligence office in the Pentagon the office of special plans to create the 21:51 rationales for the already planned attack on Iraq to convince people that 21:55 Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that he was linked to 22:00 al-qaeda and 911 22:02 lieutenant colonel Karen quick kowski worked in the Pentagon's Near East and 22:07 South Asia office she witness how the office of special plans issued talking 22:12 points about Iraq for senior government officials allegedly based on 22:16 intelligence the information in there and drawn from fact you can find bits 22:21 and pieces of fact throughout but framed articulated crafted to convince someone 22:30 of what 22:31 well of things that weren't true things that were true 911 22:36 al Qaeda related to set of the same possibly be so involved with their the 22:40 liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against her 22:46 we've removed an ally of al Qaeda the very things that a year later President 22:54 Bush himself denies and and feigns his surprise I don't know why everybody 22:59 thinks that we have no evidence that Saddam Hussein 23:01 was involved with the ship term of the 11th well I worked in a place where they 23:06 concentrated on on preparing this storyline and selling it to everyone 23:11 that they can possibly sound it wasn't a failure of intelligence it was the 23:14 manipulation of intelligence to achieve a political goal they were disciplined 23:19 they stayed on message hey Marshall all of their forces in this relentless 23:23 public relations campaign to convince the American people that there was a 23:27 threat from Iraq the bush team's full court press giving speech after speech 23:34 after speech and issuing reports the United States knows that Iraq has 23:41 weapons of mass destruction any country on the face of the earth with an active 23:45 intelligence program knows better a cast weapons of mass destruction 23:49 there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction 23:54 there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends against 23:59 our allies and against us 24:00 the choice is his and if he does not disarm the united states of america will 24:06 lead a coalition and disarm him in the name of peace 24:12 the president's mouth vice president mouth in the same things that were being 24:17 given to us to put into our superiors are senior civilian leadership mouth 24:21 these things were not based on intelligence that we saw that everyone 24:24 saw they were based on a very selective reading of the intelligence and then a 24:28 creative packaging such that you can push through these two big points that 24:33 the president and vice president and the Holy Oh connect conservative community 24:37 used to justify this pre-emptive war on read less than a teaspoon full of dry 24:44 anthrax in an envelope 24:46 shut down the united states senate in the fall of two thousand and one their 24:50 policy depends on deception and secrecy 24:54 like every Imperial policy in history even dictatorships have taken great 25:00 efforts all is the disguise 25:03 what they're doing and why they're doing it to their own people this was never 25:07 about weapons this has always been about getting Saddam Hussein and even in the 25:11 most 25:12 no recent spin up of this whole weapons issue the bush administration knew that 25:17 there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and yet they 25:20 continue to use the inspection process is a vehicle to achieve the ultimate 25:25 goal and objective of regime change these guys to be brought up on charges 25:28 there should be investigation about whether these guys should be allowed to 25:32 serve our country anymore because to me it's criminal to say we're going to send 25:36 our troops to war based on falsifying intelligence based on puffed up and 25:41 graduated details so successful was the propaganda campaign 25:46 that by 2003 poles were showing that the vast majority of americans believe the 25:51 unfounded claims that saddam hussein was linked to 911 and that he possessed 25:56 stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction believes that allowed the 26:00 administration to frame an invasion of iraq as a non-aggressive justified act 26:05 of self-defense under international law rather than an offensive action designed 26:10 to extend us Empire 26:12 contrary to the lies still to the American people Iraq had absolutely no 26:18 connections with 911 26:20 al Qaeda was despised by the regime in Iraq which was a secular regime not 26:24 interested in religion as such but they still wanted to go for it 26:31 and so they delayed it they went into Afghanistan first and then they decided 26:36 to go for Iraq 26:38 now why did they decide to go 26:40 basti interesting 26:48 and I think the whole business with a rock isn't terribly sour comedy 26:52 abstracted down to its smallest motives but finally there was no real what there 26:58 was there was a sense that Iraq had to be invaded because it was the first step 27:04 in going toward American Empire 27:06 there's no doubt that saddam hussein was a tyrant thug a butcher 27:10 it's true it was is true in 2003 as it was in 1983-84 when Donald Rumsfeld 27:15 visited Iraq and met with Saddam Hussein and other top officials as an emissary 27:20 of the Reagan administration to improve ties to Iraq 27:23 it was true in 1988 when Saddam gasps the Kurdish people in the north of Iraq 27:27 with the implicit support of the united states united states was unconcerned 27:32 with the fate of the sheet of people in the south of iraq in 1991 when after the 27:35 Gulf War had ended the u.s. allowed Saddam Hussein to very brutally put down 27:39 the uprising that the United States and encouraged in other words the United 27:44 States has consistently supported Saddam Hussein throughout the worst of his 27:48 crimes 27:49 when his policy was consistent with us interest in the area 27:52 the minute that those interests change then Saddam Hussein became the center of 27:56 evil in the world Saddam Hussein's regime is a grave and gathering danger 28:03 this is the way propaganda is used to motivate a public to support a war that 28:09 is really not about liberating anyone what about extending and deepening 28:13 American control 28:14 we support democracy when it's convenient to the interest of the United 28:18 States of America and maybe I'm an ideal is difficult you know what I believe 28:23 that there should be some sort of standard for determining how we conduct 28:28 our foreign policy but I believe there should be a standard we are seen in the 28:32 world as hypocrites were seen as Liars were seen as an imperialist power but 28:37 what they're trying to do is 28:39 have an Iraq that is a friend to us not a racket is liberated 28:45 this is totally bogus we never intended to liberate the Iraqi people 28:50 we didn't deliberate Iraq from Sodom and have a footprint military footprint 28:55 there and we've done that now we have to wait for 15 in Bahrain we have a nice 29:00 base in color but it's into for yourself and when we have we have four bases in 29:04 Iraq beautiful basis we can hit Syria we can hit Iran we can keep tabs on 29:09 Afghanistan so what kinds of things we can do from those bases the larger 29:14 picture is being driven by the fact that we're about to hit peak oil worldwide 29:19 that there's this sort of emerging global competition between us in China 29:25 there's the ongoing economic rivalries between us in Europe and so the 29:29 Southwest Asia becomes geopolitically linchpin 29:32 and the idea is if you want to have real leverage or control in the future global 29:38 economy if you can sit back and control the attack for natural gas 29:43 mostly and oil secondly but very importantly that will give you enormous 29:47 strategic power in the world 29:49 the war in iraq was very very clearly about oil as was the invasion of 29:55 Afghanistan also the oil pipeline that was planned the best security for that 30:00 was an occupation of Afghanistan 30:02 if you map the pipeline proposed pipeline route across Afghanistan and 30:07 you look at our bases matches perfectly 30:10 our bases are there to solve a problem that Taliban could not solve common 30:16 could provide security in that part of Afghanistan well that's where the bases 30:19 are so is that have to do with Osama bin Laden 30:23 it has nothing to do with the summer been a lot it has everything to do with 30:27 a longer a plan 30:29 and in this case a strategy which I wouldn't necessarily call 30:33 neoconservative however it fits perfectly in with the new conservative 30:38 ideology which says if you have military force and you need something from a 30:43 weaker country then you need to deploy that force and take what you need 30:46 because your country's needs are paramount it's the whole idea of 30:50 unilateralism of about using force to achieve your aims all of this on one 30:56 hand described as part of an anti-terrorist strategy but underlying 31:00 it is this blueprint the cheney blueprint for increasing the Americans 31:06 access to and control over the rest of the world's oil 31:10 the context is the desire the United States to control these strategically 31:14 crucial regions the pretext that is the excuse for going in in Afghanistan was 31:19 about terrorism and osama bin laden in Iraq it's about weapons of mass 31:23 destruction and Saddam Hussein 31:25 but in the end neither one of those Wars was really about those people are those 31:29 regimes it was about securing and solidifying America control over these 31:34 incredibly important regions of the world 31:36 we just pulled out here yesterday just to come out and help protect the o-line 31:41 tank 31:44 so yeah they're interested in oil but that's a middle run interest their 31:47 immediate goal is intimidation 31:50 so when people say for example was very frequent that it's all about oil of 31:56 course oil is important and of course we want control of a boil 31:59 but oil isn't enough to explain a war on Iraq the major reason to take Iraq was a 32:09 display of imperial power was to show both the Arab world but not just them 32:16 but to show Europe and the Far Eastern Bloc china and the Koreans who was 32:22 master to make it so apparent and so overwhelming at the very outset of 32:28 potential military operations that the adversary quickly realizes that there is 32:32 no real alternative here other than till to fight and die or to give up but we'll 32:36 follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict 32:39 it will be if of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been 32:46 seen before 32:51 it had been planned for months and now one day after that first air strike the 32:56 Pentagon's shock and all the campaign was under 12 blitz the capital with 33:02 bombs to stun the Iraqis into a quick surrender 33:10 this is the beginning of the shock-and-awe campaign according to one 33:14 official 33:15 this is going to be the entire nine yards 33:18 it was a breathtaking display of firepower and the Pentagon says we ain't 33:23 seen nothin yet 33:27 yeah 33:32 we keep talking about this overwhelming force that we're prepared to use i'm 33:36 wondering are you concerned at all that we will be seen as a bully while it may 33:42 have appeared to american TV viewers that shock and all was merely a catchy 33:46 media label for the u.s. bombing campaign in Iraq its actual origins and 33:51 a whole theory of warfare are found in 1996 advisor report published by the 33:57 National Defense University authored by Harlan Coleman of the National War 34:02 College 34:03 it argues that the aim of modern warfare is not merely to achieve military 34:07 victory but also by means of sheer intimidation to inflict a deep 34:13 psychological injury to scare and terrorize potential rivals into 34:17 submission 34:18 it is in effect the practical application of the Wolfowitz doctrine of 34:24 global domination through force describing shock and awe awe as quote 34:29 massively destructive strikes directly at the public will ohman writes quote 34:34 intimidation and compliance of the outputs we seek to obtain the intent 34:40 here is to impose the regime of shock and all through delivery of instant 34:44 nearly incomprehensible levels of massive destruction directed at 34:48 influencing society writ large through very selective totally brutal and 34:54 ruthless and rapid application of force to intimidate Coleman continues 34:59 the aim is to affect the will perception and understanding of the adversary 35:05 without senses the adversary becomes evident and entirely vulnerable 35:14 the reasons for the extreme hostility and fear that quickly rose all over the 35:21 world we're not just the invasion of Iraq but the fact that the invasion was 35:25 understood to the an action taken to demonstrate that this program for global 35:32 domination by force and crushing of any potential challenge was meant extremely 35:38 seriously 35:51 and what did we see in the aftermath September 11 2001 immediate action on 35:55 all fronts 35:56 the Patriot Act was passed here in the united states without public debate 36:01 without any debate by Congress just passed 36:03 it's a frontal assault on the Constitution attorney general Ashcroft 36:06 moved aggressively after the attacks expanding the executive branch's legal 36:11 authority our assault on terror our of war on terror allows us to justify an 36:17 illegitimate a whole bunch of things that I think are pretty scary and 36:20 frightening 36:21 they can come into your home or my home plant listening devices take documents 36:26 photograph documents 36:28 tap the phone and not tell you about it and get away with it right now as we 36:33 talk 36:34 the fourth and sixth amendments to the Constitution to the bill of rights are 36:38 dead letters 36:39 despite being a US citizen jose padilla has been held indefinitely in a naval 36:44 break in South Carolina 36:46 he's never been charged and hasn't seen a lawyer 36:49 this administration has in effect repealed key sections of the bill of 36:54 rights they actually suspended habeas corpus in there Patriot Act 36:59 they have made indefinite detention possible 37:02 all of these things should be of the gravest concern to Americans and yet 37:08 it's being done all under this guy's a fear we have to do this because the 37:14 terrorists are lurking behind every door today the Justice Department did issue a 37:20 a blanket alert 37:24 it was in recognition of a general threat we received this is not the first 37:31 time the Justice Department of acted like this was the last time given the 37:37 attitude of the evildoers 37:39 it may not be the more were afraid the more you asked us to give Patriot deck 37:44 to enhancements to the Patriot Act 37:46 now the budget starting to be bankrupted billions flowing out of this country and 37:49 dual into a war on terror more defense expenditures therefore I've asked 37:53 Congress for one year increase of more than 48 million dollars for national 37:58 defense 37:59 the largest increase in a generation perpetual war the loss of civil 38:04 liberties 38:05 ah the lack of trust in government because they don't tell the truth 38:09 these are outrageous and unpleasant political developments but they don't 38:14 necessarily spell the end of the United States financial bankruptcy does to 38:19 maintain the bush administration's war doctrine massive increases in military 38:24 spending have been required the united states now spends more than 400 billion 38:29 dollars annually on the military seven times as much as the next biggest 38:34 spender and nearly equal to what the rest of the world spins combined such 38:40 vast expenditures on military machinery and war together with the largest tax 38:45 cuts in history have driven the bush administration's record budget deficits 38:50 they have also been responsible for deepening the national debt which by the 38:55 end of two thousand and four figures to stand and over seven trillion dollars 39:00 more than three times the size of the debt of the entire third world 39:04 foreign countries hold the notes on about one-third of this unprecedented us 39:09 depth that money must be paid back and that means somewhere down the road 39:16 Americans will pay taxes and get nothing 39:19 debt is reaching forward to future generations taking their wealth bringing 39:24 it on to current account and spending it 39:27 it's like if I mortgage my home and use the money for crack or something 39:31 just some expenditure eventually you can lose your home 39:35 the image and the rhetoric is a top America going it alone 39:38 the reality is in hock in debt America begging others for money 39:42 the cowboy stopping occasionally with the horse getting off the saddle going 39:46 to the western union and wiring money to the rest of the world is not a lot of 39:49 western films because it doesn't seem super cool but that would be our cowboy 39:53 are Cowboys gonna have to hop off that horse periodically by the way the horse 39:57 that he won't own and make payments to ever does on the horse and the saddle 40:02 and the gun and the boots and a hat and the basis of you as economic strength 40:07 today is the fact that the dollar is the reserve currency all over the world 40:12 that's a political phenomenon 40:14 now if tomorrow and I think it will car tomorrow or the next day 40:19 these countries decided that makes no economic sense for them 40:24 it never made political sense what makes no economic sense for them then the u.s. 40:28 goes down the drain 40:29 I mean it really goes down the drain in terms of a real reduction Senate of 40:34 living and so forth over the next few years if the neil kinds get the way 40:38 we're going to see increased money for the Pentagon increased tax breaks for 40:42 very wealthy people and fewer dollars are going to go to education housing 40:46 healthcare and other basic basic needs things that can't go on forever 40:51 don't what we're talking about right now is the rig American economy can't go on 40:57 forever and it's not rocket science to say so in a lot of ways us power in the 41:03 world is collapsing 41:04 what these neoconservatives are trying to do is to compensate with military 41:08 might and muscle and force 41:11 what they're losing in terms of economic control , war president I make decisions 41:17 here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with wore my mind 41:22 they are people who want war forever and this makes them much more like a fascist 41:31 movements than it does like conservative movements 41:33 one more after another after another we become a warfare state that is the the 41:39 system is set up to go to war 41:42 we're going to find wars we've already had two wars - a major wars in Iraq and 41:46 Afghanistan 41:47 one of the major characteristics of the process of militarizing an entire 41:51 society is going to be the glorification of war and weapons a Hollywood set 41:57 designers was brought in to create a two-hundred-thousand-dollar backdrop for 42:03 official war briefings in USA Today and in the major network coverage and so 42:09 forth 42:09 you have this very elaborate computer-generated graphics sort of 42:13 coverage of the different 42:16 US air force and army planes and gunships and helicopters and very snazzy 42:23 weapons of all descriptions was quite amazing i I'd fallen almost in love with 42:28 the f-18 Super Hornet because it's quite a versatile plane 42:32 it was really an idolatrous there a kind of gods of metal worship that again is 42:39 an extreme perversion 42:44 I think in human terms seven months after the bombing campaign the patent 42:48 office 42:48 report a flood of applications to use the phrase for products they're our 42:53 filings to trademark golf clubs action toys coffee makers even shock and awe 42:59 condoms and it's not enough for us to be told to accept this war were really 43:06 encouraged to gain some kind of vicarious pleasure from 43:13 yeah 43:18 yeah 43:19 ok 43:23 yeah 43:31 old HDD presented by tom brokaw operation iraqi freedom 43:35 log on to shop abc.com and get it today 43:38 one of the most important roles of the news media is to make sure the American 43:41 public never sees the effects of war 43:44 so we see the tanks from which the shells are fired 43:47 we see the soldiers firing shells we don't see the people killed and maimed 43:52 by those shells the American public has received a very one-sided view of war 43:57 I for one don't think that we should censor photographs of people who are 44:00 wounded or dead 44:01 I think we should see him in living color every single night 44:05 you know now they hide while that's you know that would be insensitive and all 44:09 that stuff 44:10 some of it after careful thought and trying to be responsible as well as 44:14 sensitive 44:14 we have electronically blurred of course at the intensity and pick the sensitized 44:21 to what's really going on in addition to the thousands of Iraqi civilians have 44:26 been killed during the war and occupation 44:29 more than 600 American service members have fallen with thousands more wounded 44:34 and permanently made each one of these casualties represents a family shattered 44:39 by the war the child to where people are really living or soldiers are really 44:46 coming from just the you know poor communities all around this country 44:50 people know what's up or people don't like it 44:54 not be known support a su Suarez del solara was one of the first American 45:00 victims of the war in iraq he left behind a wife a young son and a father 45:06 Fernando's whereas del Sol or course to come to terms with their loss to the war 45:11 destroy a lot of families these families destroyed and my grandson largely father 45:19 I was your opportunity good for nature with the father and more and work is to 45:28 living in verify he told me Father I come back 45:31 don't worry about but something happened 45:35 take care of my song white my son and made the same location to give me and I 45:43 say no worry about you come back 45:47 I never come back 45:49 Stan golf as a retired Army Special Forces Master Sergeant his son is 45:54 currently serving in iraq in November of 2003 golf rode an open letter to 46:00 american troops in iraq he drew connections between his own combat 46:05 experience in the Vietnam War and what he now sees American troops experiencing 46:10 in Iraq to the hardest things i had this year 46:13 one was when I said goodbye to my son and one was the day after the truck bomb 46:22 went off on the eleventh december and Ramadi for years 46:25 oh because it took two days before her to think I mean we're on pins and 46:30 needles 46:31 I have additional shares the fear that he's gonna come back as crazy as I was 46:39 when I came back from Vietnam and you know we are a lot of this went crazy in 46:44 different ways 46:45 no i don't know how many helicopter pilots I talk to you came back from 46:50 Vietnam and say I just love the reason it was there was the biggest thrill of 46:56 their life was just to find somebody where there were no witnesses and hosing 47:01 down and way more common than most people realize people at me like a 47:06 caught that stuff was going on every single day somewhere an atrocity 47:13 generating situation that's what we have in Iraq right now 47:17 me attacks that took the attacks on our troops there are clearly inspiring a 47:26 kind of trigger happiness and a readiness for vanish in our troops that 47:30 I think will result in the same kind of things we saw from the only life I wrote 47:35 the piece said hold on to your humanity specifically to describe how that 47:42 process happens to some people 47:44 why it happens how is the very bottom of it is the ability to redefine people 47:50 whose whose nation you occupy are somehow less than human 47:55 in November of 2003 a US delegation of military families and veterans visited 48:05 Iraq 48:06 Medea Benjamin of global exchange helped organize the trip and accompanied the 48:11 group the son of one of the members of our delegation said to him his father 48:17 dad 48:19 they meet us here they saw first as liberators and now they see us as 48:24 occupiers and they hate us they want us to go home 48:28 we want to go home one woman who saw her daughter for the first time in three 48:36 years because their daughter had been stationed in Germany and this mother 48:40 broke down and cried seeing her daughter 48:43 she said if I had the money to put my daughter in college she would be holding 48:47 a book instead of a gun 48:49 she shouldn't be holding a gun none of these kids should be holding guns 49:02 foreign policy was hijacked by some people that I think it's cruel but 49:07 proper general is any of the Marine Corps call them chicken Hawks war lovers 49:13 but who have no experience of either barracks life or of war who are abstract 49:19 enthusiast for Empire 49:21 how many of these men who are in the economy intellectuals avoid military 49:26 service when they had the chance 49:28 or when they were of draft age they avoided it but yeah of course they're 49:32 willing to send you know blue-collar men white working class and men of color 49:36 from the poor and and working classes often kill and die for their imperial 49:41 ambitions but they're sitting in there in there I'm you know Tony offices in 49:44 Washington New York 49:45 I'm an American first and foremost I love my country 49:49 more than anything I want to die for my country and like George W Bush our 49:51 president mr. chicken hawk a guy who couldn't even have the courage to see 49:56 through his tour of duty in the air national guard may be flying f1 or tues 49:59 / houston texas was too dangerous so we ran off to Alabama 50:03 while millions of Americans were going to Vietnam 50:06 he has administration chock-full of these so-called heroes people who didn't 50:10 have the courage to defend their country in a time of unpopular war and yet today 50:15 they've got engaged in another unpopular war and they're asking other people go 50:18 out there and do things because you cannot because none of them served in 50:22 the military anywhere uniform they all had other things to do 50:25 none of their children serve in the military so in this is a double chicken 50:29 ha planning here because some you know George Bush's daughters don't wear 50:33 uniform 50:34 uh it's finally he compared he said you know my daughter is the same age is 50:38 jessica lynn to you but there's a big difference 50:40 just clench your uniform and then what you guys told him to do you say you the 50:45 leader of the free world because you have military experience and we find out 50:47 you've been awol you didn't really show up in their homes even in the stories 50:51 you put forth in the media now to suggest i was there look I have memories 50:54 of it i remember that i was there 50:56 there is 50:57 anyone who can't stand up and say I served with george w bush these records 51:04 talk to have been noted by his commanding officers kind of his officers 51:09 to our colleagues are singing it's a simple question 51:11 having a simple answer which was a draft dodger 51:14 not only that he was a wall in fact he was a deserter because this is longer 51:18 than 30 days 51:20 you're a deserter the guy was actually a deserter in wartime 51:24 if it had been Clinton it would they would have just crucified on the White 51:27 House lawn 51:28 i was in iraq when George Bush made the comment when he was talking about Iraqi 51:34 attacks on US soldiers and he said bring mine 51:38 there are some who feel like that you know the conditions are such that they 51:43 can attack us there 51:44 my answer is bring them on and you should just seeing the reaction among 51:48 the the troops when they heard that he started thing 51:52 bring on the attacks we're the ones who are out here on the streets doing patrol 51:58 that are the targets 52:01 how could he be saying that this can only be coming from people who never 52:04 fought he could dress himself up 52:08 all he wants in this military gear and show up on air crafts and present 52:14 himself for the turkey in front of the troops 52:16 this guy never fought a war he's not qualified 52:22 just to speak of myself as much but he's shrewd enough to know that those working 52:29 male's out there are very angry and that if he presents himself as macho as he 52:36 did of course with that ridiculous flight in the backseat of that fast 52:41 plane to land on the carrier in full combat gear if you possess of that way 52:46 they'll buy it nowbuy because they needed recent AP poll showed mr. Busch 52:52 leading his Democratic opponent John Kerry by almost twenty percent when it 52:56 comes to a white man 52:58 and on his on his visit to ground 0 a few days after the catastrophe 53:03 he took the bullhorn and stood alongside some of the rescue workers and basically 53:11 did the one thing he has always been undeniably good at which is cheerleading 53:16 was a cheerleader Rick Phillips Andover actually and very good at it but this is 53:22 a culture of TV but where the press really only cares about and only 53:29 responds to a televisual performance and a moment where everybody wanted a big 53:36 daddy 53:37 Bush did well enough to allow the press to marvel at his and has a plum his 53:43 stature and it became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy 53:48 if I had a little window into the average american household 53:52 you know like five minutes on their TV screen at night to tell them how to 53:56 decode the kind of propaganda are going to see from President Bush about 53:59 security 54:00 i think you know i would say first of all don't just look at the images 54:05 don't just look at Busch landing on the aircraft carrier 54:08 Bush surrounding himself with our troops who are several fine then I want them to 54:18 look tough they want to look strong in fact even an earth day 54:22 you know the image they chose was him with an axe in his hand clearing trails 54:26 in the Adirondacks 54:27 so you know he is administration is so dripping with testosterone that even 54:32 celebrate Earth Day the guys got to have a weapon in his hand 54:35 they lose no opportunity to take pictures of bush on the ranch outdoors 54:40 not sitting at a desk 54:41 we know wearing you know reading glasses and having you know intellectual 54:44 conversations but out walking 54:46 clearing brush sitting in the back of a pickup truck those images are plentiful 54:50 and that's not an accident that's how they understood 54:54 which is popularity is is he is the rugged individuals he is the cob way 55:01 the Republicans of ingenious ingeniously you know created the sense that this is 55:09 about real men 55:10 it's time for real men to step to the plate now enough of this namby-pamby 55:13 because George W represents the reborn american male pushes propagandists have 55:19 been masterful at at crafting a certain image for him actually based to some 55:25 extent on his weaknesses 55:27 he's not a guy who was born in Connecticut and was a legacy admission 55:32 to Phillips Andover and Yale 55:34 he's on a guy who is the queen of england as a cousin you know you've got 55:39 a guy from fabulously wealthy family 55:41 none of that is the case he's just Will Rogers he's just just the regular guy 55:46 and when he misses up the language it proves it's just like you and me 55:49 I understand the emotionality of the death penalty you have daily story about 55:54 subliminal messages to reduce flower power plant emissions first time we may 56:00 be completely certain he has a nuclear weapons some accuse us both of not being 56:06 able to speak the language 56:08 that's pretty brilliant yes that is to make Bush out to be kind of jacksonian 56:13 figure kind of natural leader from the wild you know 56:19 President Bush's colleagues talk about a certain America to defend their policies 56:24 they think America is still is back in the 19th century or the tough guys can 56:29 take out one another in an open combat man against man high noon on a Main 56:34 Street with Gary Cooper played by president bush 56:39 I want him to know I want I want justice 56:43 and there's an old poster out west as I recall that said wanted dead or alive 56:50 he's not Gary Cooper he's a coward who bushwhacked the American people by 56:55 exploiting the fear and ignorance and gender in a post-911 environment to poor 57:00 train iraq as a threat to our national security 57:03 weapons of mass destruction that were destroyed the very society that we live 57:07 in the need therefore for the frontier justice to prevent mushroom clouds from 57:12 popping up all over American cities 57:14 he lied to and she bushwhacked us you know you think of past elections 57:18 michael dukakis you think of that you know him riding around in the tank 57:21 looking like snooping 57:22 you know you think of the Willie Horton ad against him 57:25 you know you don't really think of substance of things because our 57:28 elections rarely turn any more on substantive issues but this is one that 57:32 really needs to be decided on the substance because our country faces real 57:35 threats but these guys are not going after the right threats they are 57:39 pursuing a pre-existing agenda under the guise of fighting terrorism that is 57:43 going to bankrupt our country that is going to put our troops at risk and it's 57:47 going to make the terrorist threat to us grow over time and said it diminish 57:53 yeah 57:58 in the immediate aftermath of sep tember 11 the people of the United States came 58:03 together in an unprecedented display of national unity and the world rally to 58:08 their cause 58:09 across the globe people came together in a spontaneous and stunning display of 58:14 unified support for the people of the united states yet just two years later 58:20 in those same places and on those same streets 58:24 tens of millions of people would come together again this time to margin 58:29 outrage over the bush administration's decision to invade Iraq how the American 58:35 people interpret the meaning and importance of this dramatic and sudden 58:39 shift is a question that has yet to be answered one of the things that the 58:43 exercise of power does is that it cuts both ways so the u.s. exercises power in 58:49 the world to create stability 58:51 people are on the receiving end of that power right see themselves being 58:54 oppressed and so they resist and as a consequence this process of trying to 58:59 pacify the world and get it to go along with what the United States once 59:02 actually creates the resistance that the u.s. is trying to quell and so this is 59:09 not the way that will actually get this forward out of the situation that we 59:12 find ourselves in only makes things worse 59:15 i would say that the war against Iraq not only is not part of the war against 59:20 terror meaning against al-qaeda or against terrorists and works 59:25 but it is virtually gives up the war on terror it substitutes for it and and 59:32 suppresses it in the sense that I think it's impossible to think of reducing the 59:38 threat from Osama bin Laden and from al Qaeda so long as we are occupying Iraq 59:45 and killing muslims in Iraq 59:48 well I look at this from the point of view of a mother I have two children 59:52 I want my children to live in a safe world I don't want any more September 59:56 Levin's to happen and I look at what this government has done post-september 60:01 11 and i think not much more you could have done to make us less safe 60:06 why do people in the US I think that if we have bigger weapons and more weapons 60:13 is going to make a safe from terrorists 60:15 we have the most advanced military in the world 60:18 we have the most sophisticated weapons in the world 60:21 we have more nuclear weapons and anybody in the world did that stop 60:27 sep tember women it didn't stop it I think it's really important we begin to 60:32 redefine national security but people don't have jobs if people can't provide 60:37 education for the children 60:38 if people are going hungry if people don't have health insurance 60:42 they're insecure we need to be able to address that level of insecurity in this 60:46 country and the federal government is not addressing those days because 60:49 reporting all this money into a unilateral war and providing tax breaks 60:55 very wealthy people we have a set of religious beliefs hear that to the 61:00 extent that we must support the wealthy the rich that the richer in terrible 61:04 trouble that if we don't take care of the rich everything terrible will happen 61:08 but my feeling is the rich can always take care of themselves 61:11 that's why they're rich they have a wonderful skill for making money they 61:14 don't need government help they need to be impeded by the government will bring 61:19 out the best in them at the same time it will level the playing field a little 61:22 bit so i think what it really comes down to is you know are the American voters 61:27 going to sit still for this 61:29 we're going to treat our democracy like some sort of spectator sport like 61:32 watching the Super Bowl 61:33 where are we going to ask a little more of ourselves this time are we going to 61:36 explore these claims are we going to look at the details of what this 61:40 administration is actually done 61:42 good good societies have cultivated fearlessness and hope among the citizens 61:49 good politics has been always been about real territorial fearlessness take God 61:58 whose ultimate weapons theorists against one of the worst empires of our times 62:04 and the very notion of not cooperating with that Empire was based on 62:11 fearlessness and martin king wok to log in tradition 62:15 he walked in fear every leader work their names promotes fearlessness 62:23 I i found it odd in the build-up to the war that the media would portray your 62:28 ideal Patriot either as the servicemember away from home or somebody 62:33 on the street corner waving a flag and shouting we support the troops 62:38 I can train a monkey to wave a flag that does not make the monkey patriotic 62:43 I can't train a monkey to read the Constitution or live the Constitution 62:46 you know on the other opposite end of that street was another group of 62:50 Americans who also had the American flag 62:53 we said support the troops but bring them home those are patriots - I think 62:58 we have to understand that the definition of patriotism cannot be 63:01 hijacked by people with a specific ideological agenda patriotism something 63:07 so we have love for our nation and love for our communities and sometimes our 63:12 nation's things that are positive and sometimes our nation does things that 63:15 are negative and it's my responsibility at my love for this nation to speak out 63:20 loudly and support of the things that it does well and speak out loudly against 63:25 those things that that it's doing its hurtful 63:28 I think the people most without fear on sep tember 12 in America for those 63:34 working at Ground Zero 63:36 they were in the greatest danger actually but because they were active 63:39 they were engaged the firemen and the medical officials and the cops who were 63:44 working their first to find victims than to find remains and clear the site they 63:50 had a civic task they were engaged they weren't afraid of anything 63:53 american citizens after nine eleven said to the president 63:57 what can we do what can we do to become engaged and take some responsibility 64:02 President Bush unfortunately said go shopping go back to the mall 64:07 go back to your normal lives will take care of it spectatorship is an 64:12 invitation to fear citizenship is how we fight the politics of fear the politics 64:18 of citizenship the politics of engagement taking responsibility is a 64:22 much better way to deal with terrorism than hunkering down being spectators and 64:27 allowing the government to rob us of our liberties to rob us of our 64:31 multiculturalism in the name of protecting us 64:34 and that's their project is to make a scared and stupid and see my problem is 64:39 I've been to wash DC and stood in the middle of the night out in the Jefferson 64:43 Memorial and read the inscriptions Jefferson's quotes that are hammered 64:48 into the marble and you look up inside the rotunda of the favorite quote at the 64:54 highest point of the building you have to turn around backwards to read it he 64:57 says on the altar of God 65:00 I pledge undying hostility to any government restriction on the free minds 65:06 of the people we were the first nation state to establish the principle that 65:10 sovereignty ultimate political power resides in the people that's a 65:15 fundamentally radical concept and these guys don't like the implications of it 65:20 for their maintenance of minority wealth and power and they're out to destroy 65:24 that but they will fail 65:26 I guarantee you 65:42 yeah 65:44 yeah 65:45 yeah 65:56 yeah









The Financial Armageddon Economic Collapse Blog tracks trends and forecasts , futurists , visionaries , free investigative journalists , researchers , Whistelblowers , truthers and many more