Why We Fight Page #11

President Bush was forced to clarify yesterday.

Now we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein

was involved with the Septermber, the 11th.

What did you just say?

I mean I almost jumped out of chair.

I don't know how people got the

idea that I connected Iraq to 9/11.

Was he nuts? What the hell we go in there for?

We're getting back for 9/11th.

If he didn't have anything to do with 9/11,

why we're going in there?

I was mad.

My first thought is: You're a liar.

I'm from the old school.

Certain people walk on water.

And President of the United

States is one of them.

If I can't trust the President of

the United States, I don't know...

It's a terrible thing when Americans

can't trust their President.

You begin to wonder what a

hell is with the whole system?

There's something wrong with the entire system.

The government exploited

my feelings of patriotism.

Of deep desire for revenge

for what happened to my son.

But I was so insane with wanting to get even,

I was willing to believe anything.

Undoubtedly there are people

who may listen to my statements

and think that I'm no good,

I'm a war monger, I'm this, I'm that, whatever.

I should never put my son's name on it,

I should be ashamed that

I put my son's name on it.

Am I sorry I asked for my son's name

to be put on the bomb?

No, because I acted under

the conditions at that time.

Was it wrong?

It was wrong, but I didn't know that.

So is it regrettable?

The reason we're in Iraq first has not honestly

been told to the American people.

It's certainly had nothing to do with

the liberation of the Iraqi people.

It was never part of the agenda,

and it's not part of the agenda now.

We know we did not have an exit strategy

in the invasion of Iraq,

because we didn't intend to leave.

We are in the process right now of

building 14 permanent bases in Iraq.

There is this incredible point right now,

that we are invincible

and we are the preeminent power on planet Earth.

American power and Amercan empire is actually

flaunted in people's faces around the world

where we rub our shoe in their face

and tell them that we're tough.

And you will work with us because you

sure as hell don't wanna be against us.

The world is changed and we're not

going back to where we were.

I find one of the sillier ideas

is the notion that you hear all the time

that American policy has been hijacked by people

and as soon as they're out of there

we're gonna go back to the way it was.

They're wrong about that.

Because we're not the same

people we were before.

We're walking on thin ice.

We are creating the same path

taken by the first democratic regime

ever created in the western world

namely the Roman Republic.

The Roman Republic inadvertently acquired

the empire around the world

and then they discovered

that to maintain, expand,

protect this empire

they require standing armies.

Standing armies is what

George Washington warned us against.

It's his farewell address that they will

destroy the structure of goverment

that we try to create in our constitution

to prevent the rise of imperial presidency.

The single most important article in our

constitution is the one that gives the right

to go to war exclusively to

the elected representatives...

of people, to the Congress.

Our Congress in October of 2002

voted in both houses

to give this power to a single man, including

the use of nuclear weapons if he so chose.

And of course less than 6 months later

he did choose to excercise it in Iraq.

For too long our culture has said:

If it feels good, do it.

Now America is embracing a

new ethic and a new creed.

Let's rule.

I think of the history of the

United States as a work in progress

and our attempted democracy

here is a constant struggle

between capitalism and democracy.

And there have been absent flows

where democracy looks like it's winning.

You reign in those powerful forces,

but the fundamental reality is that most

of the government's decisions

today are substantially...

dictated by powerful corporate interest.

Clearly capitalism is winning.

Due to this behavior, America will fail.

She will fail completely among the countries.

And another country will rise

and take America's place.

I am not a political man, but that is

my analysis as an ordinary person.

America will lose because her behavior

is not the behavior of a great nation.

In my lifetime I have seen the collapse

of the Nazi, of the imperial Japanese,

of the British, French,

Dutch and Russian empires.

They go down pretty easily.

What I want Americans to understand today,

the price of liberty is eternal vigilance

and we've not been vigilant.

Since Dwight Eisenhower issued

his warning to us back in 1961

about the dangers of unauthorised power in

the form of the military industrial complex.

We should take nothing for granted.

Only an alert and knowledgeable citizen

can compel the proper meshing

of the huge industrial and

military machinery of defense...

with our peaceful methods and goals.

So that security and liberty

may prosper together.

You gotta realize 20 years in

the military you're trained

always to respect authority,

to be a team player.

When the war started in Iraq,

I hit a targeting point...

where my values as an officer diverged.

I had to basically remove myself.

So, why we fight?

I think we fight cause too many people

are not standing up saying:

I'm not doing this anymore.

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