SPEAKER_00: All right, this segment is on Ukraine and we've Called the Ukraine debate because we have two great writers and thinkers up here who are on slightly different sides of this issue of the US involvement in Ukraine Antonio Garcia Martinez writes is the author of the best-selling book chaos monkeys about Silicon Valley. He writes a sub stack called pull request and also has a great call-in show and Glenn Greenwald is is Glenn Greenwald is back with us from yesterday Also a phenomenal writer has a amazing sub stack all of you guys should check out as well and a great call-in show So in setting up this topic, let me just say I think you know that You know in thinking about the US involvement in Ukraine You know, there's not a lot of debate about this topic and in that sense It's pretty similar to other wars that the US has gotten into Many of you probably are not old enough to remember when the US got into Iraq or Afghanistan And I'm not old enough to remember what the u.s. getting into Vietnam But the thing to understand about all those wars is that they were incredibly popular at the time that we entered them And by the time that they ended they were not and now I'm not saying I'm not pre judging Ukraine and saying it's one of those I think there's important differences that we should get into but I think we should at least have this debate and we need more discussion Around this and so for that I'm grateful that Antonio is my side to participate So what I'm going to do is kick it to each of them for kind of five minute opening statements And then we'll just get into sort of more of a back and forth and we'll start with Antonio. Cool. Thanks. Thanks David
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for skewing the moderation from like literally the first Comparing it to Iraq as I come up here to say it's not about a rock at all but Yeah, so let's just start off with I think probably most people here know that I actually spent some time in Ukraine unlike a lot of the independent voices Who decided to opine from afar about Ukraine? I felt that the American media discourse about Ukraine was completely skewed and it just smelled kind of bullshitted to me And so I thought I had to go and actually see it And so I spent some time on the Polish border with Ukraine This was kind of in the earliest part of the war kind of early March and the western part of Ukraine Which by the way is not particularly dangerous or anything. It's probably no more dangerous and walking across San Francisco these days to be honest But it was interesting to actually go and see and I took away two things I wrote two sub-sek posts about it that I want to share with you Two parts of the Ukraine story one the refugee situation is incredible It is something that you have to see to believe and even then you can't quite understand the scope of it ten million Ukrainians fully a quarter of the country is currently displaced something like six million Ukrainians have left in the span of two months when you stand at the border at Medica which is one of the the border crossings with Poland what you see is your your your at it and you realize you're at The fringes of sort of normal, you know Western European life and you've entered on the other side of that is hell that people are escaping and what do you see you see? Again, the men can't leave because they're prohibited from leaving because they're because they have to fight and so you see is old people or women with children Imagine a woman in her 30s with two kids a little rollie bag and like a cat in a bag like that's the typical thing And just a line of them going over the border Again and again and again, right and the polls have been amazing and how they receive the Ukrainians literally millions of Ukrainians But all the same it's an enormous strain everywhere you go in eastern Poland or western Ukraine That's a big open area is basically a refugee camp whether it be a train station Repurposed warehouses all of it. The human situation is just kind of mind-boggling the other thing I'd like to share I crossed the border. It was weird crossing the border There's this line of people looking to leave and there's like you with my little star link and my little bag and my little body Armor like walking across the other way because you can't take cars across everyone walks across and everyone's looking at me like I'm crazy Because why are you walking in the other direction, bro? it's any I walked in the other direction how to driver pick me up experience a little bit of Western Ukraine for for a few days and I experienced what I think probably nobody here has experienced directly which is total war right a society that's completely and totally Mobilized to repel a foreign invader, right? I was in a city called Lviv which is one of the western cities that sort of free Ukraine and Everything there is either men and weapons and trucks going east or women and children and refugees going west That's all you would see that's all that would happen there and all of society from the interpreter I had because unfortunately I speak no Ukrainian to the driver who would drive me around to the the hacker I interviewed who was like D dossing Russian websites all of them would punctuate their statements with we will win Right, and that's when I realized that the big mistake that everyone had made I think particularly in the US discourse is underrating Ukrainian resolve and their zeal for their own nationalist project right after
SPEAKER_02: After spending a day there and again remember this is relatively early days of the war he was still encircled It wasn't clear if there were if the Belarusians would start a Western front It was all still up in the air But I was starting to think you know I don't see how the Russians win this like this just seems impossible Ukraine is the size of Texas as a population of 40 million people roughly the size Imagine the Russians showing up with 200,000 soldiers and trying to control, California It's gonna be very difficult to do Particularly when literally everybody is staring at you and saying we will win which is what what happened and that's when I realized that this Whole story was very different than it's being projected in the United States And that's I felt I felt vindicated in going because I think There aren't that many American journalists there And I think a lot of the discourse in the US tends to skew towards Iraq or towards projection of American political domestic neuroses and not the facts on the ground in Ukraine in which you have devastated cities you have women and children refugees You have literally a total war situation that the Western world hasn't seen since World War two That's the reality of Ukraine and what I hope to debate here
SPEAKER_00: All right Thank You Glenn great
SPEAKER_01: So I shouldn't have respect for anyone's decision to go actually see a place that you want to talk about I think that there is though a question of how much you can actually learn about a country of 44 million people with an incredibly complex history with extreme diversity of thought in terms of the population By going for whatever it is a week or ten days to a kind of sliver of that country That has extremely different views than another region for example if in 2003 you wanted to go before the war in Iraq and figure out what Iraqis thought if you went to the Kurdish regions of Iraq you would hear nothing But I want the United States to come and liberate us from the Selam Hussein if you went to the Sunni triangle You would hear if you come if the United States comes here. We're gonna make this a graveyard Of Americans and and similarly if you go to Western Ukraine, of course, you're gonna hear We want American help We want to fight the Russians to the end if you go to the eastern up regions of Ukraine Which are Russian-speaking who identify with Moscow you're gonna hear the exact opposite So I think you know, it's commendable to go to a country like Ukraine. I think we have to be humble about our ability to understand the thoughts of the population the reality on the ground when you go to certain segments that you select and That are almost likely to kind of feedback to you what it is that You're already expecting to hear the other thing. I think it's very important to note is that you know, first of all, I'm a little surprised by the idea that I guess it was implicit that Antonio felt that the media narrative has been off or one-sided in the sense that it hasn't been favorable enough to the idea that Ukraine is the victim that needs help and Russia is the Clear aggressor. I can't remember Ever reading an article on the mainstream press since the invasion that said anything other than that Which is why you know 80% of Americans the entire bipartisan class in Washington of both parties are essentially unified in support of the narrative that Antonio believes in my opinion with great sincerity. I think there's been if anything a kind of lack of dissent available in the United States on the other side and this is one thing I want to emphasize is There has been this claim this sort of implicit claim sometimes explicit claim that the entire war is united behind the United States behind Ukraine against Russia the reality is overwhelmingly the Most of the world is in fact not united behind the United States and then in opposition on Ukraine most of the global south 15 of the most of the 20 most populous countries on the planet either abstained or voted no when it came time to decide whether to expel Russia from the Human Rights Council and Some of those countries are tyrannies many of them such as India the world's largest democracy Brazil the second largest democracy after the United States very much deviates from the Consensus in the United States and and sometimes I think if we're Americans and we're living in a country in which we're bombarded with one message It's incumbent upon us to ask why it is that so much of the rest of the world Does not believe that the United States is participating in the war in Ukraine with benevolent intentions or with the desire to? protect democracy or protect against aggression with in fact that the rest of the world looks at the history of the United States not just distant but very recent and sees a country not devoted to protecting democracy, but you propping up tyranny to Fighting wars not to protect innocence, but to sacrifice innocence in its own interests And so I think that's one really important thing is to make sure that we're looking at this war not as a country That's essentially a belligerent in it But as a country that is just a small part of the rest of the world that has a lot of opinions the other thing I would point out is war in general is The worst thing that humanity can unleash upon itself. There is no war that doesn't involve extreme amounts of atrocities Extreme amounts of war crimes all kinds of hideous things and if you look at any war any war Not just the ones that United States the United States adversaries have started But once the United States has started ones that the United States is allies have started that we support you're gonna find enormous amounts of atrocities and any Decent person with any kind of a minimal moral compass who looks at any war like that is gonna walk away Horrified and disgusted and wanting to do something about it the only difference between what's happening in the war in Ukraine and so many other wars is that the US media is constantly showing us images and stories about Ukrainian victims as it should
SPEAKER_01: But think about the wars that the United States has itself started or is propping up like for example the war in Yemen that has Been going on for many years that is still going on because the United States is supplying Saudi Arabia not exactly a democracy with enormous amounts of weapons and money and intelligence to fight that war and Think about how much you've heard or seen About the victims of Yemen how many Yemenis have you heard from? Talking about their relatives who have been lost in in in in battle or how many? People who we bombed in wedding parties and the like have been lost and well And so I think what this can happen is it can create an imbalance in our perception the imbalance isn't that? The war in Ukraine really isn't horrible it is but that there's really nothing Extraordinary about what's taking place in that war all wars including the ones we start the ones that were waging the ones that were supporting Have the same kinds of atrocities and the question ultimately becomes does the United States really have? benevolent motives in trying to Defend Ukraine instead of sacrifice it and secondly does the United States have the ability To foster a positive outcome on the other side of the world involving extremely complex cultures and histories and two countries of very intertwined geostrategic interests that Even if we did have the right motives would you really have the ability by flooding this country with weapons and all the other things? We typically do in wars to foster a positive outcome And I think that's why the rest of the world has a lot of doubts
SPEAKER_00: Okay, thank you, Len so Glenn went a little longer so Antonio Why don't you be a couple of minutes to respond to that and then I want to ask you both a question Okay, I think I walked into the wrong thing
SPEAKER_02: I didn't realize we're debating Yemen instead of Ukraine Glenn or Indian foreign policy instead of our own One thing I would say is one thing you said is just completely wrong It's not the case that Eastern Ukraine is pro-russian if so How do you explain Mario poll a city completely destroyed that fought to the last man with civilians literally holing up in a steel plate? How do you explain all the successes in the eastern part of the war? You never actually mentioned the facts of the war you're always what about in other countries reaction to the war the fact that the Eastern Front in Russia that the war is going very poorly for Russia How do you explain that fact that if Eastern Ukraine is actually pro-russian that the Russians are doing so poorly there the other thing I would Say I don't think it's the fact if you look at most polls And it's funny this poll came out and instantly Your friend Tucker Carlson as well as Jenny Vance had to change their line on Ukraine because they realize that it's hard to be a populist If your views aren't very popular right AP did a poll and not just Democrats support Biden being tougher on Russian Republicans do as well right and why is that because you have a small country that's getting crushed by a country That's been the historical sworn enemy of the United States as long as anyone can remember I live out in the middle of nowhere in a red state Trump country in the desert outside of Reno and people are flying Ukrainian flags along with the US flags. I don't think that's because they read New York Times, right? The other
SPEAKER_00: So Antonio, let me ask a question so we recently had Well previously by just one last thing there
SPEAKER_02: You know the other thing I would say is that you know this in that country don't support it one thing I found one aspect of the story that I found was very interesting Was that all of Europe has shown up on Ukraine's door to help out the Ukrainians right usually? I'm I'm both you US citizen. Usually I read both media It's like the US that is like the hardline realpolitik and then the EU that's in like geopolitical la-la land I think in the case of this story It's been reversed and I think the US is taking Ukraine projecting it in its own domestic political narratives like Linus and I think the Europeans Actually see their own collective history in the Ukrainian story because whether it be the Spanish Civil War whether it be the Germans They all remember what total war actually means what it is to stumble through destroyed streets and be a refugee and displaced person Americans don't have an experience of that. They can't really resonate with that fortunately for us to be clear But I think Europeans do so if you go to that border area You will see all of Europe as far away as Spain Denmark whatever showing up to actually help the Ukraine's the last thing I would say is I think one thing that unites I think the old left that you would probably put yourself into in with Glenn like a Bernie leftist and then you write is that Both consider two key things one the US can never act abroad in a legitimate good way Everything the US does abroad is always a fiasco and then to everything that happens abroad is our fault Like literally the entire world's events are downstream of a State Department phone call and I just don't I just don't think that's true Being in Ukraine. It doesn't seem to me as if the US is pulling all the strings on the contrary It seems like a very chaotic situation where the Ukrainians trying to improvise as much as they can And so again on the one hand, I reject the fact that the US can't act abroad Well, I think it can if you look at things East Asia Japan Korea Western Europe itself The US has created the condition for democracy in the past. Okay, but in China, is there a limit to wise US involvement in Ukraine?
SPEAKER_00: So, you know we had Biden basically said that Putin cannot remain in power And then immediately his own press secretary walked that back as a gaffe You then had Secretary of Defense Austin say that our objective in Ukraine is not just to expel the Russians but to weaken Russia as a great power so it can never threaten anyone again you then had Seth Moulton that the a Democrat of the House Armed Services Committee saying that we were in a proxy war with Russia and then Sidney Hoyer the house majority leader Said we are at war with Russia. Do you think we were at war with Russian? Is that wise? No, we're in a proxy war. We're in a proxy war with Russia What is the vital national interest the United States that compels us to be in a war? Admittedly through a proxy with Russia that has 6,000 nuclear weapons even if I were to grant that we should be trying to out of humanitarian motives expel the Russians From Ukraine. Do you believe that we should be trying to destabilize and topple Putin?
SPEAKER_02: Let me counter that with the questions for me. I feel like I'm debating two people But I like I jumped in my tweet the odds are even worse for the Ukrainians. So I'll take it I mean I asked you this question in Miami not too long ago David You're the one who said oh, we're threatening World War three We're engaging in nuclear brinkmanship, but by the way things that we did all throughout the Cold War, right? I was raised as an 80s kid here in Miami We used to do this thing all the time at what point would you stop at? What point do you think it's actually worth rolling the dice at what point between? Lviv and Warsaw and your front door would you stop and say actually World War three and nuclear war is worth risking because that's an Answer I don't get out of the appeasers at what point you actually put your foot down
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean look what I've said is that I'm willing to arm Ukraine under Cold War rules I eat the way that we armed the Mujahideen in Afghanistan So we provided them with stingers, but it wasn't a US flag on the box and we didn't draw You know wasn't US flags on the trucks We there were a certain set of rules by which we engaged in to avoid the risk of World War three with the Russians Do you feel that's not the case now?
SPEAKER_02: I think it's I know because we have now defined our objectives in a much more expansive way and I'll let one speak for himself
SPEAKER_00: Because I think he would not go as far as me. I'm sort of in I'm willing to do a little bit more but But no, I mean look you have the president I states saying that he wants to basically topple Putin You've got Austin saying that our objectives here go beyond Ukraine It's basically to kick Russia out of the League of Great Powers and moreover You've got the State Department declaring that we're in a global struggle between autocracy and democracy So we've defined the struggle in Manichaean terms and if somehow Ukraine were to lose There's like there's a domino theory where dictators are going to take over the whole globe And so I think we've invested you create I would give them some help But I would not allow the we know American president has ever claimed that the United States has a vital National interest in Ukraine name of the president has done it before maybe so first of all
SPEAKER_01: At the start of every word that we fought over the last 60 years the same Climate if we were in the United States would prevail as the one that's in this room Every time some comment was made that the United States is on the right side. We're actually doing the right thing We're fighting on behalf of everybody in the auditorium. Whoo applaud. It's really good It's a good feeling to feel like your country your government is doing something deeply moral So again, I just want to show and maybe you know, this doesn't matter because you think that most other countries are primitive or arrogant or Immersed in propaganda and we're not but here are the top 20 countries by population and the ones in yellow Are the ones who refuse to support the UN resolution expelling Russia? From the UN Human Rights Council and you can see that it's nine out of the ten Most populous countries that are on the opposite side of all the cheering that's taking place in this auditorium This is exactly what has repeated itself every time we've gone to war in Vietnam in Iraq in Afghanistan in Libya in Syria all Americans across the board 80% 85% are on board with the war in the beginning because it feels so good to believe your country is Going to war to do something positive and then six months later or a year later or five years later every single one of those Wars overwhelming majority say it was a huge mistake that at least to me would cause Some humility to ask why does that pattern keep repeating itself? Why am I as America an American always so susceptible to cheering my government's involvement in a war? When the rest of the world is telling you that actually you're being propagandized that the mode of the United States government is claiming to have which is defending democracy is not actually their motive as illustrated by I don't know why the rule is we're not allowed to Evaluate other things the United States is doing to determine whether those motives are real like what we do in Saudi Arabia or what we do in Yemen it seems like if someone comes to you and Claims that they're acting with a certain motive to determine whether that's really the motive you'd want to look at the history of that Person and whether their behavior is consistent with that motive That's what the rest of the world is doing and the reason why they find these Propagandistic claims of the United States so preposterous because so many of them have been victimized by the United States Overthrowing their democratically elected governments not in the distant past but in the recent ones. Here's the Next ten most populous countries six out of ten also deviates from the US position And then as far as what David was saying this was Barack Obama, so it's not what Antonio was saying people on the far left my friend Tucker Carlson evil far-right people This is Barack Obama in 2016 on his way out the door he was confronted in a very lengthy interview by Jeffrey Goldberg the Neoconservative editor-in-chief of the Atlantic who probably did more than anybody else to convince Americans to support the war in Iraq in 2002 and 3 by claiming that al-qaeda was in an alliance with Saddam Hussein And he was demanding to know why Obama spent his presidency Refusing to arm the Ukrainians and refusing to confront Moscow and here's what Jeffrey Goldberg in 2016 Quoted Obama is saying this is Goldberg's Quote for Obama quote Obama's theory here is simple Ukraine is a core Russian interest, but not an American one so Russia will always be able to maintain Escalatory dominance there quote the fact is that Ukraine which is a non-nato country is going to be vulnerable to military domination by Russia No matter what we do It's realistic But this is an example of where we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for and then here is the current CIA Director William Burns who's also not on the far left or part of the far right who in 2008 in a memo to Condoleezza Rice when the Bush administration wanted to expand NATO up to Russian borders Warned this is what he wrote quote Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite Not just Putin in more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players From knuckle draggers and the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin's sharpest liberal critics I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine and NATO as anything other than a direct challenge To Russian interests this has been conventional wisdom in Washington up until February 24th when it suddenly became taboo to talk about Russia Views Ukraine as the most vital interest to it because it was twice used by Germany to invade Russia in the 20th century and virtually Destroy it and that Ukraine never has been and never will be a vital interest to the United States Let's go to Antonio. Okay, go my chance. Okay, Glenn
SPEAKER_02: I think that argument sounded better than the original Russian to be honest I mean, I don't know why you're sitting here citing six-year-old Atlantic pieces about Obama Are you gonna address the reality of what we're talking about in that list of nations? By the way, you included such human rights luminaries as Iran and China's having voted against it Let me ask you a direct question Should Russia be sitting on the UN Human Rights Council a country that routinely incarcerates journalists and has a heinous human rights record I mean the quote
SPEAKER_01: If you look at who else is on the Human Rights Council like the United States You're always what about in blank just answer the question. It's not what about ism to say you have to look at What the rest of the world is doing in order to understand the moral framework Why is it that the United States that still has people on Guantanamo for 20 years with no trial that destroyed the country of Iraq? a country of 25 million people that is the created the worst humanitarian crisis in Yemen that is Imprisoning journalists like Julian Assange with no charges for over a decade now has any moral credibility To say we are morally superior I know it feels good to say that but the reality is the United States if you look at what it's actually doing Which is going around the world and it's always done this supporting tyranny not supporting democracy propping up despots not fighting them what if you want to believe that there's a way to go into yet Ukraine and Defend the Ukrainians and all of that. I believe that that's what you want to do, but it would be Incredibly naive to refuse to ask ourselves whether that's really the goal of the United States given everything we know about the government and if the goal of the United States is not the Benevolent one that you hope they have and that you have but instead is a different one Namely not to defend Ukraine and Ukrainians but to sacrifice Ukraine in Pursuit of this broader geopolitical goal that David mentioned that they're now admitting which is to weaken Russia and bring about regime change Then you're cheering for a war that is completely different than the war that is actually being fought No
SPEAKER_02: I disagree and I think I think you've spent too long in Plato's cave of Twitter and you don't you don't stare at reality anymore To be quite none of what I showed you Not what I just showed you came from Twitter. Yeah, it came from the six-year-old Atlantic piece. It's even less relevant Just this week the Finnish and Swedish parliaments voted to join NATO Why is that your your argument is completely backwards Russia's not aggressive But hold on a second. Let me finish the thought right right now. Hold on Russia Let me respond to the point that you've sat there for two minutes staring at Russia is not surrounded by NATO Russia isn't aggressive because it's surrounded by NATO. It's surrounded by NATO because it's aggressive Okay and countries like Finland and Sweden Have been living under the Russian boot and Finland most of all knows it from the winter war and that threat has been there constantly So again, what do you know that the Finnish and Swedish parliaments who are trying to make a decision for their people don't know well if I were a country and I and the and I have the option to have the richest and most powerful country with the
SPEAKER_01: biggest military tell me that if anyone invades you I'm gonna go into war and fight again to I would say yeah I would love that also that sounds like a really great thing Of course, every country would love to have a pledge from the world's greatest military that if anyone are you seriously saying the country? But why not Ukraine? What do you what do you know? What do you know about? United the United States intentions that all of the countries I just showed you not including tyrannies many of which are on the United States side But many democracies who have had their democracies subverted by the United States who are saying we do not believe the United States is well-intentioned That every time the United States involves itself in a war it convinces its own citizens that it's gonna do benevolent things But the reality is exactly the opposite. What do you know that the entire rest of the world doesn't? It's not the entire rest of the world the Europeans are
SPEAKER_02: The Europeans who are closer to the conflict completely disagree with you the Danes the cuddly little Danes are sitting left lethal It's Ukraine first my own countries the Spanish are Me shift gears. I want to get to another aspect this topic. So
SPEAKER_00: Let's let's start with you Antonio. What is the outcome that you would like to see here? And You know right now the way that victory is being defined would by Ukraine and by our State Department is that We kick Russia out of Ukraine maybe even Crimea too That's the official policy and maybe we destabilize and topple Putin. I mean, we're Where's the like what do you what's the outcome that you think our objective should be here? my ideal outcome is whatever the Ukrainians want for themselves, which
SPEAKER_02: seems to be If you listen to them It seems to be a liberal democratic Ukraine that wants to join the greater EU Western sphere if you look at the the Maidan protest in 2015 This is when everyone kind of revolted against the pro-russian leader at the time and there were civilian shootings And if you talk to Ukrainians, I mean there's been 200 years or longer of Ukrainian sort of nationalism kind of brewing But the 2014 2015 protests were really a formative peer with the Ukrainians really said this is it We've got our own country and if you talk to them, they're like we've had seven years of democracy We're not giving it up now, right and if you look at things like the mass graves discovered at buka when the Russians pulled back They look at that and they say if we fail that's the future that awaits us, right? So they want the opposite of that
SPEAKER_00: Apparently 80 to 90 percent of the population in Crimea is Russian and wants to be part of Russia Does that go back to Ukraine or does that go to Russia? It's a good question, but the Ukrainians under Zelensky believe that Crimea belongs to them. So is he wrong about that? Doesn't the principle of self-determination mean that those peoples should get to decide which country they go with? I mean, that's as much a question for Crimea as it is Catalunya in Spain. I mean
SPEAKER_02: But but the Russians have a naval base at Sevastopol that gives them control over the Black Sea and if you tell them that
SPEAKER_00: That what Ukrainian victory means here is they get kicked out of that naval base and lose control of the Black Sea You have threatened them Existentially and you know their policy with regard to nuclear weapons is it's allowed if their nation is existentially threatened So we are playing with fire here Is that an objective that we are willing to risk a nuclear war for as we did in Cuba with nuclear weapons there? I?
SPEAKER_00: Don't think we should be so we need to define our objectives in here in a more limited way than just whatever the Ukrainians say But here's the reality right again
SPEAKER_02: This is one of the things you get into American political discourse Everything isn't downstream at American decision. This will come down to the fortunes of war on the ground in Ukraine Which is partially a function of how much aid we give them obviously. Yes, and we can put strings on those weapons, right?
SPEAKER_00: 40 million of weapons are going there. It's just this month's delivery So I mean and it's a good question to ask what happens to those weapons after which I'm sure is a concern for
SPEAKER_02: Do you believe our State Department is working for a negotiated peace? I don't know the inner workings in the State Department
SPEAKER_02: But should they be?
SPEAKER_02: No, I think the worst option the Ukrainians want it to stop
SPEAKER_00: There's so many countries all over the world who want the United States to do things that we don't that we don't do for them
SPEAKER_01: The Yemenis have been begging the United States for six years to stop sending huge amounts of weaponry and intelligence To the the Saudis and you can say oh, yeah, Yemen is a totally different country Yemen's a different country But it's still the United States government and it is extremely disturbing to me. I have to say that We suddenly seem to care so much about the lives of Ukrainians and seem to care very little about the lives of all the countries in which we ourselves are the aggressors and you can Say well, that's a completely different issue but it's not a completely different issue because what the United what the outcome is of the United States is role in Ukraine is determined by the US motive and what you have to do to look at what the US motive is is not Pick the rhetoric that makes you feel good. We're on the side of liberation That's what George Bush said in his 2003 State of Union speech We're going to Iraq because we love democracy and we're gonna liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein That's what Lyndon Johnson said about why we're getting involved in the war in Vietnam We love the South Vietnamese Democrats and we're going there to protect them from the South Vietnamese communists Maybe if that had been true those words would have had much different outcomes But that wasn't the reason that was the propagandistic pretense And so to refuse to say I'm gonna interrogate the authenticity of what US motives are Is it just wash your hands of the reality of the war instead of what you hope the war is and and that's Let's give an attorney the last word. Yeah, okay
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna give you that we're gonna give it Tony last word since he was a little bit outgunned here Not outgunned because you did more than fine on your own, but there was a little bit of two-on-one So we're gonna give it to you. David. What what were you guys talking about?
SPEAKER_02: Somalia apparently or Yemen apparently but anyhow So when I was coming back from Ukraine and I was crossing back and suddenly I was obviously I wasn't really a refugee but I Was in the refugee line along with all the other Ukrainians leaving and you're at the border. It's the middle of nowhere, by the way It's not like a big city or anything and you saw sign in Polish It said you're entering Poland and the EU flag right now as a new citizen that flag never really meant much to me But and again not that my time in Ukraine was that bad? But it did feel precarious and it was a war zone and sirens going off and all that stuff to go back to what seemed Like an ordered liberal world seemed magical to me. I had the same feeling I went to report on Cuba on the internet years ago for Wired magazine and when I landed at Miami Airport here was like man God bless America. I'm glad to be back here. There's a certain order and rules to life I think the global liberal order is real and I think those who tend to shit on it or at least question its value are Those that typically tend not to live outside of it for one and undervalue its importance in the world Ladies and gentlemen a debate for the ages. Well done
SPEAKER_00: Oh
