WMDs at Brave New Films

Chris Hedges - Changing Attitudes on Iraq

2008-10-21T20:33:39Z

Complete video at: fora.tv

Author and journalist Chris Hedges recalls criticism of his opposition to the Iraq war during the fall of 2002, an opinion he claims led to his dismissal from a job as a war correspondent for the New York Times.

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At the Chautauqua Institution's 2008 season, Chris Hedges, a journalist and author specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society, discusses his book Losing Moses on the Freeway: The Ten Commandments in America.

Chris Hedges is a journalist and author, specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He has written for Foreign Affairs, Granta, Harpers, Mother Jones, National Geographic and The New York Review of Books. He is the author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning - a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. His other books are What Every Person Should Know About War and Losing Moses on the Freeway: The 10 Commandments in America.

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John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 07/18/08

2008-10-28T03:31:07Z

John McCain
Town Hall Meeting
Warren, MI 07/18/08

TRANSCRIPT:
AUDIENCE MEMBER: "This is on Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. We preemptively went into Iraq. And not one terrorist came from Iraq. And now there's Iran. And you made sort of the joke of 'bomb bomb bomb Iran' -- I hope that was a joke. And Osama's still running around somewhere. So, I wonder what your feelings are on preemptively going into countries where we don't really like the leader if they have oil or if they don't have oil And, what you plan to do if you're President on going into Iran, not going to Iran, pulling out of Iraq, not pulling out of Iraq, going into Afghanistan, or ay other countries that you think you want to win wars with, and we lost Vietnam, you said you knew how to win wars, we didn't win there. And I don't know if winning wars is necessarily something that a President wants to do or should do."

JOHN MCCAIN: "Well, thank you, you ask a very profound question and I appreciate it. And I will again not try to give a long response because, because we have other questions but since Americans are in harm's way and Americans have made enormous sacrifice, I think it's worthy and the Iranian threat and the situation in Afghanistan could lead to further greater sacrifices

"I'd like to just say to you very- we are in a dangerous world. There's the threat of radical Islamic extremism, which threatens everything we stand for and believe in. This is an evil sometimes its hard for us to comprehend and they're active in a lot of places in the world, there is some information they try to reestablish cells in the United States of America. Obviously, there's some small success in Europe. It's an evil that's hard to encompass.

"Not long ago, al Qaeda took two mentally disabled young women, put suicide vests on them, and sent them into a market place in Baghdad and by remote control detonated those suicide vests. It's hard for us to encompass how evil these people are. They like to cut off people's heads and put it out on the Internet. [...] They're dedicated to the extinction of everything we stand for and believe in.

"Now, I believe we were justified in going into Iraq based on the fact that every intelligence agency in the world, including the United States of America, believed that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. He'd used them- excuse me- weapons of mass destruction, and he had used them twice before and there's no doubt about his willingness and desire to develop them and use them again. The sanctions were breaking down, American planes were being shot at, there's a multibillion dollar oil for food scandal in the UN, etc. etc.

"But that's a history and that is for historians to argue about and I'll be glad to have that discussion at some academic forum.

"But, we are there. And we went there and we were losing. And we were losing badly. And I went over there early on and saw the strategy and said 'this can't succeed, it's going to fail, we gotta change it.' I was criticized by the Republicans for being disloyal. I said, at the darkest time in my political aspirations for President I said we've got to send 'we've got to Send 30,000 more troops over there.' Everybody- the political pundits and others said the McCain campaign is dead. And, my friends, I would rather lose a political campaign than lose a war. And I said we had to do this new strategy and that is a strategy, it isn't just an injection of troops.

"And they have succeeded. They have succeeded. My friends, they have succeeded. And I'd be glad to give you all the data to back that up.

"Now have we had victory, final victory? No. The al-Qaeda and others are back on their heels but they still are intent on doing bad things. And they'd love to try to resurrect their efforts. And they've still got the Iranians who are exporting the most lethal explosive devices into Iraq that is killing young Americans. And we've still got the Iranians [...] moving forward with developing nuclear weapons. But in Iraq, we have a government that is pretty effective. We have a justice system that is stumbling, and hauntingly moving forward.

"And we have succeeded. I'm not saying we are succeeding- we have succeeded. And we will -- we will- win this war. We will win this war if we don't do what Senator Obama wanted to do -- that's set a date for withdrawal and predicate it on a date and not conditions on the ground."

LABEL: JM MI 07-18 (JR#62) AKG-ClipC

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John McCain: Town Hall Meeting 01/12/08

2008-10-27T03:30:17Z

John McCain
Town Hall Meeting
Kalamazoo, MI 01/12/08

TRANSCRIPT:
QUESTIONER: "How long has the war in Iraq been a war against radical Islam? I mean how long have you felt that . . . ?"

JOHN MCCAIN: "I think that we were fighting to stop one of the most evil dictators on earth from doing what he had done . . . I met with a high-ranking al-Qaeda member and I said, 'What is it that helped you do so well for a long time in Iraq?' He said, 'Two things.' He said, 'The lawlessness after the initial invasion.' That was a terrible mistake. We didn't have enough boots on the ground. Books have been written about all the mistakes that have been made. The second thing he said was, 'Abu Ghraib.' He said, 'And that was because of the humiliation of Iraqis that was shown to the world and to those people was the greatest recruiting tool [they] had.' The point: obviously our failure in Iraq ratcheted up the participation of Islamic extremists . . ."

QUESTIOENR: "What would capturing Osama bin-Laden do in the immediate future?"

JOHN MCCAIN: "Oh, I think it would cut off one of the great propaganda engines in this war."

LABEL: JM MI 1-12 (GR#58) AGHC-Clip A

To download a high res version of this clip, VISIT: https://issuealliance.box.net/shared/epccd0c8wo
To download the full campaign event, VISIT: https://issuealliance.box.net/shared/cjyxcg884c

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Revisiting Claims on Iraqi WMD - Douglas Feith

2008-10-27T21:31:28Z

Complete video at: fora.tv

Former U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith revisits pre-war claims on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, arguing that Saddam Hussein was much closer to acquiring these weapons than has been claimed by anti-war advocates.

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Douglas Feith's remarkable War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism is the first book written by a former Bush Administration insider to offer a dispassionate and documented account of the reaction to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 that led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

War and Decision, as the Wall Street Journal has noted, is the first "revisionist history" of the Iraq war. It challenges the conventional wisdom that holds the belief that in a rush to war a cadre of neoconservatives politicized intelligence findings.

Henry Kissinger says of the book, "The fullest and most thoughtful statement of the Pentagon thinking prior to and in the first stages of the Iraq war. Even those, as I, who take issue with some of its conclusions will gain a better perspective from reading this book."

To explore Feith's account, Hudson Institute held a discussion with three former officials who were active participants in the decisions of the day: Paul Wolfowitz, Visiting Scholar with AEI, former President of the World Bank, and former Deputy Secretary of Defense; Peter Rodman, Senior Fellow with the Brookings Institution and former Assistant Secretary for Defense and Adviser to the National Security Council; Dan Senor, former Senior Advisor to Presidential Envoy L. Paul Bremer III, Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority. This discussion was moderated by Hudson Institute CEO, Kenneth Weinstein - Hudson Institute

Douglas J. Feith served as the Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy for United States President George W. Bush from July 2001 until he resigned from his position effective August 8, 2005.

Feith's official responsibilities included the formulation of defense planning guidance and forces policy, United States Department of Defense (DoD) relations with foreign countries, and the DoD's role in U.S. Government inter-agency policymaking.

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Angry Americans remixed

2008-10-30T09:32:00Z

by Exodus

reveals what kind of people are in control

song: Fablous Disaster

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Understanding U.S. Sanctions on Iran

2008-10-23T03:31:05Z

Complete video at: fora.tv

Michael Jacobson, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and former Senior Advisor to the U.S. Treasury Department, discusses the current state of U.S. sanctions on Iran.

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Michael Jacobson discusses "Sanctioning Iran: A View from Washington."

Michael Jacobson is a senior fellow in The Washington Institute's Stein Program on Terrorism, Intelligence, and Policy. His areas of focus include sanctions and financial measures to combat national security threats, as well as other issues related to counterterrorism, national security law, and intelligence reform.

From September 2004 to June 2005, he worked as a Soref fellow at the Institute, authoring the monograph The West at War: U.S. and European Counterterrorism Efforts, Post-September 11. From June 2005 to March 2007 he served as a senior advisor in the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). In that capacity, he fulfilled a wide range of responsibilities, including involvement in the office's strategic planning, priorities, and budget. He was also a liaison to TFI's congressional oversight committees, to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and to the National Counterterrorism Center.

Previously, he served as counsel on the 9-11 Commission, where he was assigned to two teams: one that focused on domestic intelligence policy issues, and another investigating the September 11 plot. In addition to his work with the commission, he served as counsel with the Congressional September 11 investigation, participating in the team that assessed the FBI's performance.

Mr. Jacobson also worked for the FBI for more than five years, first as an intelligence analyst, then as assistant general counsel in the Office of the General Counsel. He holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Brandeis University, a master's degree in international relations from Tufts University, and a law degree from Boston College Law School.

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Bush Iraq 9/11 Lies

2008-10-20T03:30:52Z

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Hastert: "The WMD's are there, marked and in barrels" (2003)

2008-10-27T21:30:33Z

"Tons of yellowcake puchased from Niger. It's there. It's stored and in barrels and it's marked. No question about it."

Recorded July 20, 2003.

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Know Bush: Launching Facts that Shock and Awe, A One Person Patriot Act

2008-10-20T18:13:52Z

A Salt Lake City working mom is compelled to write anonymous KnowBush email messages, "Based on the belief that the True Shall Set You Free", spreading less-known verified facts that reveal the hypocrisy of the Bush administration, from January to October 2004.

As the 2004 election nears, she drops her anonymity to present selected Know Bush Facts onstage at the Salt Lake City Main Library.

While the presentation is almost 3 years old, it is remarkable how much information was available back then that we are only barely grasping now, AND how much is still unacknowledged by the main stream press.

If more people had seen this presentation, Bush/Cheney would have had to steal/destroy more votes to keep their stronghold on the White House.

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On the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise at Faslane

2008-10-19T21:30:51Z

Greenpeace campaigner Frank speaks from the bridge of the Arctic Sunrise about the day's activities at the nuclear missile submarine base Faslane

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