Jimmy Carter: The implications of the soviet invasion of Afghanistan
Could cause a most serious threat to the peace
Since the second world war.
Tear down this wall.
Stone: For a glorious moment in the late 1980s,
The world was a hopeful... even joyous... place.
Protracted and bloody wars were ending
In Afghanistan, angola, cambodia, nicaragua,
And between iran and iraq.
Plo leader yasser arafat,
Under pressure from moscow...
And implicitly recognized israel's right to exist.
In December 1988, at the united nations,
Mikhail gorbachev, in the spirit of ending the cold war,
Asked for joint action to eliminate the...
He urged banning weapons in outer space,
And demanded an end to exploitation of the third world...
Including a soviet...
He called for a U.N.-Brokered cease fire in Afghanistan.
And offered...
And the tactic of...
"the new york times" proclaimed that
Not since roosevelt's and churchill's atlantic charter
Had a world leader demonstrated a vision
Like gorbachev's at the u.N.
Breathtaking, risky, bold, naive, heroic...
His ideas merit the most serious response.
I support what the president says.
Stone: New president george Bush
Had not yet moved into the white house
After trouncing massachusetts governor michael dukakis
In the '88 election.
Trailing by 17 points that summer,
Bush had struggled to overcome the so-called "wimp factor."
It's odd that the recipient of the distinguished flying cross
Who had flown 58 combat missions
As a navy pilot during world war ii
And been shot down in the pacific
Would be derided as a wasp,
Wimp, weenie, every woman's first husband,
Bland conformist.
Peace through strength works.
Stone: But because of his nasally voice
And his sheltered upbringing,
Yale education and oil money background,
He appeared to be the ultimate insider establishment candidate.
Most of his political offices
Had been appointments...
Ambassador to the united nations,
To china, and c.I.A. Chief.
But none of ronald reagan's charisma
Had rubbed off on him.
Reagan hadn't wanted him on the ticket.
Reagan: And I am recommending to this convention
That george Bush...
Stone: Seeking to improve his changes,
Bush followed the advice among others
Of his oldest son, george w.,
Adopting a more aggressive strategy
Against the reserved and stoic dukakis...
Who came from greek immigrant roots
And was reluctant to counterattack.
He questioned dukakis's patriotism
And openly played the race card
In a campaign ad about the furloughed murderer willie horton.
Man: Dukakis not only opposes the death penalty,
He allowed first-degree murderers to have weekend passes from prison.
Stone: Like Nixon, Bush appealed to voters' racism
And fears of crime.
His strategy turned the tide,
And Bush took office in January 1989,
Placing the destiny of much of mankind
In the hands of two men who had witnessed firsthand
The ravages of war...
Bush as a victor,
Gorbachev as a young eyewitness
To germany's brutal destruction of the u.S.S.R.
In the 1990s, with america searching for a new role
In the rapidly-changing world,
The mass media began elevating the world war ii generation
To especially heroic dimensions.
At the 50th anniversary of d-day in 1994,
The greatest generation was anointed.
It became a nostalgic concept
And sales of books, movies, and tv boomed.
32nd!
Stone: D-day became the climactic battle
Of world war ii.
Stone: Even pearl harbor
In glorious technicolor
Was turned around into a victory.
Jimmy doolittle: Victory belongs to those that believe in it the most.
Believe in it the longest.
We're gonna believe.
We're gonna make america believe too.
Stone: Conveniently, the media
Ignored or overlooked the fact
That influential americans opposed to roosevelt's new deal
Had aided and abetted the third reich
After the true nature of hitler's anti-semitic regime
Was known.
The motive... whether hatred of communism,
Fascist sympathies, or simply greed...
Was rarely openly discussed.
Among these men was president Bush's own father,
Prescott Bush...
German coal and steel magnate fritz thyssen
Had been one of hitler's early backers,
And much of his wealth was protected overseas
By the brown brothers harriman investment firm
Through the holding company, union banking corporation,
In an account managed by prescott Bush.
In 1942, the u.S. Government seized union banking corp
Along with four other thyssen-linked accounts
Managed by Bush.
And after the war, the shares were returned
To the american shareholders including Bush.
I.B.M.'s legendary founder thomas watson,
Through his german subsidiary dehomag,
Helped the government in tabulating its census
With its punch card machines that later proved effective
In identifying jews and helping make the trains run on time.
On an even larger scale, general motors' alfred sloan,
Through his german subsidiary adam opel,
Built cards and transport vehicles for the german army.
Sloan, on the even of germany's invasion of poland,
Said his company was too big to be affected
By a petty international squabble.
Henry ford's german subsidiary
Manufactured an arsenal of military vehicles
Throughout the war with the consent of the parent company in michigan.
Ford himself had earlier published
A series of articles, later a book,
Titled "the international jew: The world's foremost problem."
Hitler hung a portrait of ford
In his munich office, and told the detroit news
In 1931, "I regard henrich ford as my inspiration."
When the european war was declared in 1939,
Ford and g.M., despite subsequent disclaimers,
Refused to divest themselves of their german holdings
And even complied with german government orders
To retool for war production while resisting similar demands
From the u.S. Government.
Ford, g.M., standard oil,
Alcoa, I.T.T., general electric,
The munitions maker du pont,
Eastman kodak, westinghouse,
Pratt & whitney, douglas aircraft,
United fruit, singer, and international harvester
Continued to trade with germany up to 1941.
American authorities knew of the death camps
By August of '42,
But until this could be clarified
Said nothing to the public.
Rabbi stephen wise finally broke the silence
In late '42.
The story was carried on page 10 in "the new york times,"
And not much was made of it.
Although the u.S. Declared many of these business activities
Illegal under the trading with the enemy act,
Several corporations still received
Special licenses to continue operations in germany,
And in some cases, shipped supplies
Via fascist Spain under flags of neutrality.
After the war, I.B.M. Fought and succeeded
In recovering all of its sequestered profits.
Ford and g.M. Both reabsorbed their german subsidiaries,
Audaciously suing and winning tens of millions of dollars
In reparations for european factories
That had been destroyed or damaged in allied bombing raids.
The subject of collaboration is highly taboo.
To facilitate such dealings,
Of course, banks and law firms were needed.
The corporate powerhouse law firm sullivan & cromwell,
Whose managing director was future secretary of state
John foster dulles...
With his brother allen dulles as a partner...
Had as clients many of these powerful institutions
Including the very important bank for international settlements...
Which was set up in switzerland in 1930
To channel world war I reparations
Between the u.S. And germany.
After the war was declared,
The bank continued to offer financial services
To the third reich.
And the majority of gold looted during the nazi conquests
Of europe ended up in b.I.S. Vaults...
Which allowed the nazis access to money
That would have normally been trapped in blocked accounts.
American lawyer and chairman of the bank, thomas mckittrick,
Claiming neutrality in switzerland
Managed this process.
Roosevelt's secretary of the treasury,
Henry morgenthau, unsuccessfully tried
To close the bank down after the war...
Claiming it had acted as an agent of the nazis.
Morgan bank, chase bank,
Union bank, and b.I.S.
Were the four dominant banks who succeeded
In obfuscating their collaborations with the nazis.
William randolph hearst, the newspaper baron
Who had done his best to provoke the spanish-american war,
Throughout the 1930s in his vast media empire
Demonized the soviet union...
Depicting hitler in a friendly light.
And charles lindbergh,
One of the most celebrated americans of the 1920s,
Became a poster boy for the isolationist america first movement.
After hitler conquered France,
Lindbergh openly feared germany's ultimate defeat
And implored the american public...
Hitler's destruction would lay europe open to the rape,
Loot, and barbarism of soviet russia's forces,
Causing possibly the fatal wounding of western civilization.
Stone: Thus, almost 50 years
After the start of world war ii,
In January 1989,
The past once more echoed the present.
I, george herbert walker Bush...
Stone: Could prescott Bush's son george,
Like john kennedy, repudiate his father's murky past
And partner with the communist gorbachev
In changing the world?
Bush perhaps pondered his options.
But he was either a deep or bold thinker.
Several times he had scorned what he called the...
Distrusting individualistic thinking.
Like harry truman after world war ii,
He surrounded himself with anti-soviet conservatives...
Among them, Dick Cheney as his defense secretary
And as his deputy national security advisor
Robert gates, the man who had made his stripes
As deputy to the fanatic william casey.
They all agreed...
Reaching out to gorbachev would weaken western resolve.
Whereas gorbachev was calling for eliminating tactical nuclear weapons in europe,
An offer most europeans applauded,
The United States countered that the soviet union
Should remove 325,000 troops
In exchange for a u.S. Cut of 30,000.
And while Bush neglected to pursue real progress
With the soviet union,
He wavered when hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators
Were slaughtered in beijing at tiananmen square
By the people's liberation army.
Condemning the crackdown publicly,
And banning military ties,
But behind the scenes making it clear
That this would not jeopardize relations
Between china and the u.S.
Gorbachev pursued the reform of the soviet system,
Rejecting the long-held view
That controlling eastern europe was necessary
To soviet security.
In a few extraordinary months in 1989 and '90,
All the eastern and central european communist governments fell.
One by one.
As the world watched in disbelief.
It was possibly the most peaceful people's revolution
Ever carried out in recorded history.
Poland, estonia, lithuania,
Latvia, hungary, czechoslovakia,
East germany, and romania changed their governments
Without fear.
On November 9, 1989,
East and west berliners jointly tore down the berlin wall...
Desecrating the cold war's most reviled symbol.
It was a grand moment... evidence of a new beginning.
Yet many americans hailed these actions as the ultimate vindication
Of the capitalist west after decades of cold war.
State department policy planner francis fukuyama
Made a name for himself, declaring...
Anointing western liberal democracy
As the final form of human government.
At yalta, in early 1945 on the eve of germany's surrender,
Roosevelt, stalin, and churchill went a long way
Towards dividing europe and asia
Into western and soviet spheres of influence.
This structure essentially lasted
Through proxy wars, near nuclear conflagrations,
Intense propaganda and espionage activity
For 45 years.
Now this was all changing, and quickly.
Gorbachev hoped that a new trust
Might lead to the dissolution of nato
And the warsaw pact.
And astonishingly, he was even willing to allow
East and west germany to reunite
On the understanding that nato would not expand eastward.
Bush led him to believe so,
But would be out of power by 1993.
And gorbachev would pay the price of trusting america
As the clinton and second Bush administrations
Expanded nato right up to russia's doorstep.
The russians felt thoroughly betrayed,
And although the u.S. Officials over the years
Have insisted that no such promises were ever given,
Recently released statements from the u.S. Ambassador
To the soviet union at the time
And previously classified british and west german documents
Substantiate the russian claims
That there was a clear commitment.
It was becoming equally clear to some
That the United States was not changing its colors
To celebrate this new mood of peace.
Barely a month after the berlin wall fell,
In December 1989,
Bush and his administration launched its invasion of panama.
Last night I ordered u.S. Military forces to panama.
Stone: Panamanian strongman manuel noriega
Had long been one of the u.S.'s errand boys
In central america.
On the c.I.A. Payroll since the 1960s,
Corrupt and unscrupulous, he profited
Assisting colombia's medellin drug cartel.
His assistance to the contras in nicaragua
Won him protection from top reagan officials
Including casey and oliver north.
But a 1988 u.S. Drug indictment
And his overturning of panama's 1989
Presidential election
Convinced Bush that noriega was more a liability than asset.
He acted... operation "just cause" he called it...
Sending in 12,000 troops to assist the 12,000 already in country
And leveling the impoverished panama city neighborhood of el chorillo,
Which abutted the headquarters of the panamanian defense forces...
Killing hundreds of civilians.
This was justified as the war on drugs
Declared by Nixon in 1971
And which was now being shifted
To fight production at the source
Which meant, among other things, targeting foreign countries
If need be for military action.
Noriega would be sent to jail
In the u.S. For drug trafficking.
To much of the world, the invasion was shocking and illegal,
But to most north americans...
Indoctrinated to the idea of a "war on drugs"...
It was business as usual in their backyard.
Congress further failed to challenge
Bush's flagrant violation
Of the 1973 war powers act.
The new message was clear.
We have decapitated him
From the dictatorship of this country...
Stone: Joint chiefs chairman colin powell
Declared, "we have to put a shingle outside our doors
Saying, 'superpower lives here'
No matter what the soviets do."
Soviet hardliners, concerned about gorbachev's reforms,
Understood that their concessions would not curb
U.S. Bellicosity.
They might, in fact, embolden the u.S.
To act more recklessly.
It did... within 14 months,
Bush once again showed how tough he could be.
This time in the middle east.
The reagan administration had cozied up during the iran war
To iraq's saddam hussein...
Turning a blind eye to his repeated use
Of chemical weapons, sometimes against his own people,
Made in part from U.S.-Supplied chemicals.
When tensions flared between iraq and oil-rich kuwait,
Which had been part of iraq until 1961,
The u.S. Ambassador personally assured saddam
That Bush wanted better relations
And had no opinion on iraq's border dispute.
Hussein took this as a signal from Bush,
And the following week...
With estimates of 250,000 troops and 1,500 tanks...
Took over kuwait with little resistance.
Long desiring a stronger footprint in the middle east,
The u.S. Sent secretary of defense Cheney,
General powell, and general schwarzkopf
To meet with saudi king fahd
To convince him to accept
A large american military force as a buffer.
When they showed the king,
Apparently doctored photos
Of iraqi troops and tanks at the saudi border,
And even across it,
Became upset, reacted, and asked for help.
But at the same time,
U.S. Satellite photography
Had been edited to erase all signs
That iraqi forces were digging in with fortifications
And trenches nowhere close to the border.
There is no evidence that hussein ever intended
To invade saudi arabia.
The deception was exposed when a japanese newspaper
Obtained photos taken by a soviet commercial satellite company
Showing no military activity near the border.
Newsweek followed up, calling it
"the missing military presence."
Pressure, nonetheless, mounted quickly.
If hussein took saudi arabia,
He'd have control of at least 1/5...
If not more... of the world's oil supply.
The israeli press led the charge,
Decrying u.S. Impotence and the weakness of Bush...
Who resembled, one editorial said,
"chamberlain in his knowing capitulation to hitler."
The ever-adaptable Bush
Turned the tired analogy on its head...
Repeatedly comparing saddam to hitler.
We're dealing with hitler revisited.
A totalitarianism and a brutality
That is naked and unprecedented
In modern times.
And that must not stand.
Stone: Concerned that saudi arabia might come up with an alternative solution
To the crisis, he quickly announced
U.S. Troops were headed to the persian gulf.
Meanwhile, kuwaiti officials
Hired the world's largest public relations firm...
Hill + knowlton... to orchestrate
The largest foreign-funded effort
Ever undertaken to manipulate u. S. Public opinion.
In October '90, in a congressional caucus
Organized by hill + knowlton,
A 15-year-old kuwaiti girl testified
That she'd been a volunteer in a kuwaiti hospital
When iraqi troops burst in.
They took the babies out of the incubators.
Took the incubators,
And left the children to die on the cold floor.
Stone: It was a masterful performance.
Bush cited the story repeatedly in making the case for war.
Turns your stomach when you listen to the tales
Of those that had escaped the brutality
Of saddam the invader.
Mass hangings.
Babies pulled from incubators
And scattered like firewood across the floor...
Stone: It was later discovered that the young witness
Had never been at the hospital,
But was the daughter of the kuwaiti ambassador to the u.S.
And a member of the ruling family.
By the time the fraud was exposed,
The u.S. Bombing of baghdad had begun.
The u.S. Public was nonetheless divided.
The leaders of saudi arabia
And especially the loathsome anti-semitic regime
Of kuwait were cruel despots...
Hardly enamored of democracy for their own people.
Nor were crucial u. S. Interests at stake
When iraq and kuwait's oil combined
For less than 10% of u.S. Imports.
In late November, cheney warned
That iraq could have a nuclear device within a year
And would likely use it.
It was a card Cheney would play again in coming years.
N.S.C. Advisor brent scowcroft
Added a terrorist threat for good measure.
I've known for...
Stone: Stung by the criticisms of his illegal panama invasion,
Bush took the measure to congress.
And though anti-war protesters filled the streets,
Congress narrowly passed the resolution
In January '91.
By that time, over 560,000 u. S. Troops were in the region.
The total would reach 700,000.
Schwarzkopf claimed the u.S. Was facing
A million-man iraqi land force
With high-quality soviet tanks
And openly willing to use chemical weapons.
Operation: Desert storm...
Which began on January 17, 1991...
By openly sending combat troops
In huge numbers into a middle-eastern country
Marked the beginning of a new era
In american geopolitics.
It would take the country deeper into a rabbit hole
It had never been before.
For five weeks, with new, awe-inspiring
Television-friendly high-tech weapons
Including cruise and tomahawk missiles
And laser-guided bombs,
U.S. Airstrikes pulverized iraq's communications,
Military, and industrial infrastructure.
On television, the american population
Had never seen firepower like this.
Arnett: The headquarters of president saddam hussein
And socialist ba'ath party took a direct hit,
And the u.S. Has been bombing the periphery...
Stone: It was the beginning of the video game era.
And it was dazzling as iraq was reduced,
According to the u.N., to a near-apocalyptic, pre-industrial age.
The ground invasion lasted 100 hours
With u.S. And saudi forces routing demoralized,
Poorly-trained iraqi troops from kuwait.
A new category of weapons
Made out of depleted uranium was born.
Their radioactivity and chemical toxicity
Would produce cancers and birth defects.
Victims would include u. S. Soldiers who suffered
Mysteriously for years from what became known as "gulf war syndrome."
Enough of the republican guard escaped to slaughter
To ensure that saddam would retain his hold on power.
Bush and his advisors decided not to push
To baghdad to overthrow the regime.
Such a move would bolster iraq's enemy iran
And might antagonize america's arab allies.
But american officials urged the iraqis
To rise up and topple hussein themselves.
When iraqi kurds and shiites responded
In large numbers, the u.S. Stood idly by
While the government crushed the uprisings
Using poison gas and helicopter gun ships.
Despite the slaughter, Bush said...
Bush: The specter of vietnam has been buried forever
In the desert sands of the arabian peninsula.
Stone: He called it a "new world order."
But among those who saw through what he called
A "burst of triumphalism"
Was the notoriously peevish conservative
"washington post" columnist george will
Who wrote...
"if that war, in which the United States
And a largely rented and potemkin coalition of allies
Smashed a nation with a g.N.P. Of kentucky
Could make america feel good about itself,
Then america should not feel good about itself."
More than 200,000 iraqis
Died in the war and its immediate aftermath.
Approximately half of them civilians.
The u.S. Death toll stood at less than...
200.
Privately, in his diary,
Bush wrote he was experiencing...
Something was clearly missing.
The laurels of victory and a true peace
Would be squandered, not in the sands of kuwait,
But in Bush's lack of foresight and vision in acquiring
A true ally in the soviet union.
Just a few weeks after signing the start one treaty,
As he prepared to move towards greater autonomy
For the soviet republics,
Gorbachev was placed under house arrest
By communist hardliners in August '91.
Boris yeltsin, president of the russian republic,
Led a popular uprising that returned gorbachev to power.
But time was running out.
For the people, there had been too many changes
Too fast.
And not enough order.
Condemned and rejected, on christmas day 1991,
Gorbachev, one of the most visionary
And transformative leaders of the 20th century,
Resigned in a form of disgrace.
The russian people had no idea what was in store for them.
But neither did george Bush.
His 91% approval rating
At the end of the persian gulf war
Blinded leading democrats to his electoral vulnerability,
Leaving the door open for little-known arkansas governor
Bill clinton to run as a new kind of democrat.
The crowd that's running washington today
Has had 12 years to test their economic theory,
And it's failed.
The charming compassionate man
Who wanted to be all things to all people,
Clinton, with the help of
Third-party conservative independent
Businessman ross perot
Siphoning off 19% of the popular vote,
Surprisingly upset george Bush.
It seemed like a golden moment.
After all, the United States had been blaming
- Social and political upheaval on the soviet union...
For the previous 46 years.
Now with a democrat in the white house,
How could we justify the bloated military budget
That for decades had diverted resources...
As in the soviet union, from needed development?
Would there at last be the celebrated peace dividend?
The euphoria over clinton proved short-lived.
Republicans wounded
Clinton out of the gate by blocking his plan
For the open admission of gays into the military.
Also, questioning his avoidance of service during vietnam.
Even more damagingly,
The republicans went to political war
With their business allies
To frighten the public and defeat clinton's
Ambitious healthcare plan to cover tens of millions
Of uninsured citizens.
Republicans called it the "battle of the bulge
Of big government liberalism."
It's time to bring about fundamental change...
Control our nation's soaring healthcare costs.
Among advanced industrial countries,
Only the United States and apartheid south africa
Lacked a national healthcare system.
Its defeat in the conservative media
And in the public perception was exaggerated
And gave momentum to an even stronger
Republican renaissance
When the 1994 midterm elections
Achieved republican control
Of both branches
Of congress for the first time
In 40 years.
Amazingly, at a time when there were
No international crises,
Both parties lurched further to the right.
Clinton, without much of a mandate and vulnerable,
Ended aid to families with dependent children,
Which had helped poor families since the great depression.
He supported the war on drugs
And tough-on-crime legislation.
The u.S. Prison population exploded
From a half-million in 1980,
To two million by 2000.
Many of these victimless drug crimes.
Post-soviet russia moved drastically to the right.
Yeltsin turned to harvard economist
Jeffrey sachs and other experts,
Such as under secretary of the treasury
Lawrence summers,
For help in privatizing the economy.
With them came the g/7,
The international money fund and the world bank,
With a form of economic "shock therapy"
Yet unknown to the russian people.
The flirtation with capitalism proved surreal.
Yeltsin quickly deregulated the economy,
Privatized state enterprises and resources,
Eliminated desperately-needed subsidies and price controls
And established privately-owned monopolies.
The people called it "the great grab,"
As the nation's factories were sold for a pittance
To opportunistic private investors
Including former communist officials who became
Multi-millionaires overnight.
While a newer money generation
Was celebrating its new freedoms,
Most russians' life savings
Were wiped out
By hyper-inflation, and tens of millions of jobs
Were lost.
Life expectancy plummeted
From 67 to 57 years for men;
76 to 70 for women.
Russia's economy shrank to the size
Of the netherlands, as it was rapidly becoming
A second world power.
The western aid and debt relief
That sachs had promised never materialized.
Sachs later blamed Cheney and paul wolfowitz
For pursuing long-term u. S. Military dominance
Over russia.
Gorbachev, in his recent memoir
"alone with myself,"
Reflected that yeltsin was preferred by Bush's inner circle
And eventually Bush, himself as...
And that a...
Anti-americanism came back into vogue.
Russians bristled as clinton pushed u.S. Involvement
In the energy-rich caspian basin
And expanded nato to include
Hungary, poland and the czech republic.
92-year-old cold war architect
George kennan called this an enormous and historic strategic error.
Many russians were coming to believe
The u.S. Was imposing a "reverse iron curtain"
On russia's border.
Though clinton professed himself a friend of yeltsin,
Polls showed 77% of the population
Preferring order over the 9%
Choosing this form of democracy...
Many pining for the good old days of stalin.
Perceiving the increasingly unpopular yeltsin
As a drunkard,
They deplored his illegal shut down
Of an armed assault on the elected parliament,
Suspending the constitution and ruling
Primarily by decree for the rest of the decade.
Polling single digit approval ratings,
Yeltsin resigned on the eve of the new century,
To be replaced by former kgb officer
Vladimir putin, who brought
Russia back from the brink
By reinstating a strong tyrannical centralizing power...
In the old russian style.
Throughout the '90s,
Clinton's administration,
Eager to take economic advantage wherever possible,
Pushed for building pipelines to ship the rich oil and gas reserves
Valued in the three to six trillion dollar range
From former soviet republics in central asia
Along routes that bypassed iran and russia.
Meanwhile, the fundamentalist taliban took over Afghanistan
And welcomed back the wealthy saudi jihadist
Osama bin laden
To establish al qaeda... "the base"... in their country.
Although he had been a part of the c.I.A. Netherworld of the '80s,
Bin laden was now totally focused on driving
The u.S. And its allies out of the muslim world...
Decrying especially the presence of u.S. Troops in saudi arabia...
Islam's holiest land.
Pointing as well to u.S. Support for israel,
In 1992 he issued his first religious fatwa.
Two mysterious bombings followed in saudi arabia,
Killing more than 20 u. S. Military personnel.
Bin laden denied al qaeda's involvement.
And the saudi government, with its close ties
To the influential bin laden family,
Steered the fbi investigation towards iran,
A perceived u.S. Enemy.
In '98, u.S. Embassies
In kenya and tanzania were bombed,
Killing more than 200.
In 2000, bin laden claimed responsibility
For al qaeda striking the u.S. Navy ship cole,
Killing 17.
Since the gulf war, u. N. Weapons inspectors
Had been overseeing destruction of iraq's wmd
As u.S. And british enforced no-fly zones
And harsh u.N. Sanctions had caused immense suffering.
The clinton administration falsely blamed
The estimated deaths of some half million children
From disease and malnutrition on dictator saddam hussein.
You know, is the price worth it?
I think this is a very hard choice.
But the price... we think the price
Is worth it.
Stone: The tough-talking albright
Insisted that hussein's use of wmd was a greater threat
To u.S. Security.
And on another occasion, she said quite openly,
"if we have to use force, it is because
We are america.
We are the indispensable nation.
We stand tall and we see further
Than other countries into the future."
Although the United States faced no clear threat
From hostile nations,
The clinton administration proved even more tough-minded
On defense than their republican adversaries
And squandered the supposed peace dividend
In a new wave of spending.
In January 2000, his administration added
115 million dollars
To the pentagon's projected five-year defense plan.
It continued spending profusely on missile defense.
Clinton also refused to sign the ottawa land-mines treaty
And oversaw a significant increase in u.S. Arms sales
To almost 60% of the world's market by 1997.
Historian chalmers johnson summed up these years in 2004,
"in the first post-cold war decade,
We mounted many actions
To perpetuate and extend
Our global power, including wars
And humanitarian interventions
In panama, the persian gulf,
Somalia, haiti, bosnia,
Colombia and serbia,
While maintaining unchanged our cold war deployments
In east asia and in the pacific."
This emerging bipartisan foreign policy seemed set in stone.
There would be no debate.
Clinton saw u.S. Actions abroad
Not as those of an aggressive resource-hungry empire
But as a necessary force for stability
In a new world order based on
America's concepts of democracy
And free markets.
He did nothing in the end
To challenge the basic structures
Of this empire.
Although his last two years were severely damaged by a sex scandal with an intern...
I did not have sexual relations with that woman.
Stone: And an embarrassing trial for impeachment
That once more blurred in a sensationalist media
Far more significant events.
"slick willie," as some called him,
In his inestimable way,
Avoided major disasters.
Benefitting from a resurgent global economy
Favoring u.S. Markets and finance,
Clinton left behind
A temporarily prosperous country
With a huge surplus.
Expecting to capitalize on parts of this legacy,
His party nominated vice president al gore in 2000.
A forward-looking, experienced man,
Who repeatedly warned of a world ecological disaster
Looming in a changing climate that needed controlling,
He would back away from this issue considerably
During the final campaign.
The here and now being of more importance to the average voter.
Republicans countered with a self-proclaimed
"compassionate conservative," texas governor george w. Bush,
Son of george h.W. And grandson of prescott.
People watching here tonight,
They wanna base their vote
On differences between the two of you
As president. Is there any difference?
I just think, jim, that this is an absolutely unique period
In world history.
And we have a fundamental choice to make.
Are we gonna step up to the plate as a nation,
The way we did after world war ii?
The way that generation of heroes said,
"okay, the United States is gonna...
Is gonna be the leader."
And the world benefitted tremendously
From the courage that they showed in those post-war years.
I think that in the aftermath of the cold war,
It's time for us to do something very similar,
To step up to the plate, to provide the leadership...
Leadership on the environment, leadership to make sure
The world economy keeps moving in the right direction.
Again, that means not running big deficits here
And not squandering our surplus.
It means having intelligent decisions
That keep our prosperity going
And shepherds that economic strength
So that we can provide that leadership role.
Yeah, I'm not so sure the role of the United States
Is to go around the world and say, "this is the way it's gotta be."
We can help. And maybe it's just our difference in government,
The way we view government.
I mean, I want to empower people.
You know, I wanna help people help themselves,
Not have government tell people what to do.
I just don't think it's the role of the United States
To walk into a country and say,
"we do it this way, so should you."
I'm not exactly sure where the vice president
Is coming from. But I think
What we need to do is convince
People who live in the lands they live in
To build the nations.
Maybe I'm missing something here.
I mean, are we gonna have kind of a nation-building core from america?
Absolutely not. Our military's meant to fight
And win war.
That's what it's meant to do.
And when it gets overextended, morale drops.
But I'm gonna be judicious as to how to use the military.
It needs to be in our vital interest,
The mission needs to be clear
And the exit strategy obvious.
Stone: As he embarked on one of the country's
Most ambitious periods of nation-building,
George Bush actually did more in his eight years in office
Than any other president to bury the world war ii myth
Of american power moderated by fairness.
In hindsight, it was his capacity to conceal
His reactionary intentions that years later
Still confounds and shocks
Many americans from the pre-2001 era.
It stared with the 2000 election itself...
The most scandalous in u.S. History,
Wounding perhaps fatally
The legitimacy of the political process in this country.
Coming as it did at the beginning of a new century
It felt to many like an ominous oracle.
Al gore won the popular mandate by more than 540,000 votes.
But lost florida when more than 10%
Of african americans were disqualified
By an antiquated state voting system,
Overseen by florida governor jeb Bush,
George's younger brother,
And florida secretary of state
Katherine harris, Bush's state campaign manager.
Behooving the shenanigans of a banana republic,
The u.S. Supreme court, without precedent,
Surprisingly intervened in the florida election process
And voted five-to-four to stop a recount...
Thus handing Bush the election.
The majority of these justices had been appointed
In administrations in which Bush's father
Was either president or vice president.
If it had happened in another country
It would had been denounced as a coup by the United States.
The dissenting judges wrote,
"although we may never know
With complete certainty the identity of the winner,
The identity of the loser is perfectly clear.
It is the nation's confidence
In the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law."
On a drizzly January day
In 2001, george w. Bush,
The 43rd president, was given the oath of office.
Thousands of protestors were isolated in zones
Far from the cameras.
Befitting a roman emperor,
Surrounded by an entourage of true believers,
Bush held fewer press conferences
Than any other president in history.
Compassion would be in limited supply,
As most of his top appointees hailed from a little-known group called the...
Spearheaded by william kristol and robert kagan,
Which had been organized in 1997
To rekindle the neoconservative vision
Of an unchallenged u. S. Hegemony.
It included defense secretary donald rumsfeld,
His deputy paul wolfowitz, and vice president Dick Cheney.
They deplored the fact that the u.S. Had lost its way
Under clinton and called for a return
To moral clarity and reagan's military strength.
They demanded increased defense spending,
Complete domination of space,
Deployment of a sweeping missile defense system
And the ability to "win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars."
And to police "critical regions,"
Especially the oil-rich middle east,
Their first order of business
Was circumventing the u.N. Security council
And toppling saddam hussein.
Gloomy and pathologically secretive,
Dick Cheney would dominate the administration
To an extent no vice president had ever done before,
And made it clear, with republicans controlling
Both houses of congress, the u.S. Was playing
By a much tougher set of rules.
Bush 41 and bill clinton had made efforts
At diplomacy and coalition-building,
But Bush the younger,
In his sense of defiance towards his father,
Came to resemble more a degenerate heir
To an admired roman emperor.
In Bush's mind, both his father
And the sexually undisciplined bill clinton were weak.
Ronald reagan was his idea of strength
And a higher father.
After all, Bush and the neocons
Believed that reagan beat the russians.
Ironically, in early 2001,
"gladiator" was named best film of 2000...
A worldwide success celebrating
Rome's harsh militarism,
And depicting a perverted leadership
That spelled the fall of the roman empire.
Commodus: All I've ever wanted
Was to live up to you...
Caesar.
Your faults as a son
Is my failure
As a father.
I would butcher the whole world...
If you would only love me!
Stone: Neoconservative contempt for the united nations
Had always been a given,
But now it seemed they were isolating themselves
Almost entirely from the world community.
The u.S. Withdrew from
The international criminal court treaty
That clinton and virtually every other western democracy
Had negotiated.
They rejected the comprehensive test ban treaty,
Which 150 nations had signed.
Bush repudiated the kyoto protocol on global warming,
And to the shock of the russians,
Abrogated the crucial 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty
In order to revise the unproven missile defense program.
In general, the media asked few questions
About these abrupt reversals in policy.
Bush disavowed the middle east peace process
And suspended talks with north korea
On its long range missile program.
His administration was "marinated in oil,"
Cheney putting together a highly secretive
Energy task force that laid out plans
To control the world's supply.
He'd made his intentions clear in '99
To oil industry executives when he said,
"the middle east with 2/3 of the world's oil
And the lowest cost is still
Where the prize ultimately lies."
Signs of an impending attack
Abounded in the summer of 2001.
Intercepted al qaeda messages said that
"something spectacular was about to happen."
Counter terrorism chief richard clark
Testified that c.I.A. Director george tenet
Was running around washington with his "hair on fire,"
Trying to get the attention of national security advisor
Condoleezza rice and president Bush.
But defense secretary rumsfeld and rice,
A former chevron board member
With a double-hulled oil tanker named after her,
Were preoccupied with
Ballistic missile defense
And reforming the pentagon.
Threat reports with headlines like,
"bin laden threats are real,"
Or "bin laden determined to strike inside the us"
Were issued.
But Bush could not focus his attention,
As he spent more time away from washington
Than any recent president
At his sequestered crawford, texas ranch
Chopping wood.
He did not enjoy riding horses,
Unlike his hero reagan.
At his presidential daily briefing on August 6th,
Where the threat of al qaeda operatives
Hijacking planes was discussed,
Bush disdainfully told his c.I.A. Briefer...
George w. Bush: All right, you've covered your ass now.
Stone: Yet with a straight face,
Bush told a news conference in April 2004...
Had I had any inkling whatsoever
That the people were gonna fly airplanes into buildings,
We would have moved heaven and earth to save the country.
Stone: Rice was equally disingenuous.
I don't think anybody could have predicted
That they would try to use an airplane as a missile,
A hijacked airplane as a missile.
Stone: Although the fbi was issuing reports
Of individuals taking flying lessons
Who had no interest in learning how to land.
As dissatisfaction was mounting
Over Bush's incompetent governance,
The terrorists struck the u.S.A.
In a highly ingenious and dramatic fashion...
9/11 it was forever to be called.
As the hijackers, 15 of them, born in saudi arabia,
Flew planes into the premier symbols
Of u.S. Imperial power...
Wall street and the pentagon.
More than 3,000 people lost their lives.
In new york, more than 2,700 people were killed,
Including some 500 who hailed from 91 different countries.
The nation watched in horror
As flames engulfed the twin towers
Before their stunning collapse.
How could this happen to the u.S.?
Who would dare attack us in the heart of our empire,
So nakedly, so low-tech?
Where was this new world order?
Had we as a nation not gotten it right?
Were we not good enough?
Had we not contained the evil
For 60 years since world war ii?
Had we not restrained ourselves from dropping the bomb
Since hiroshima and nagasaki?
And now, to some very powerful american leaders,
It was as if they, the outliers of empire,
These terrorists had dropped hiroshima on us,
At the very least pearl harbor.
All-out war was called for.
On that day, an anger and justification
For that anger was unleashed on the world.
An enormous pandora's box of dark energy
And pent-up fear of chaos,
Reminiscent of the late 19th century french revolution,
All came together in a self-righteousness
That would spawn a crusade against not only
Bin laden and his followers,
But all evil in the world itself.
may u.S. And a kill
Every single terrorist.
May george Bush drink the blood
Of every single man, woman and child of iraq!
Yeah!
Stone: For Bush, it was not only
His destiny to be a war president,
But this was a great awakening
On a global scale.
Bush declared...
George w. Bush: Our responsibility to history
Is already clear...
To answer these attacks and rid the world of evil.
The world, for the most part,
Responded with great empathy for america.
Vladimir putin of the u.S.S.R. Was one of the first
To offer help.
Major islamic figures denounced the attacks
As a crime against humanity
And osama bin laden as a fraud,
A person who had no right to issue religious edicts,
And no religious training.
Chris hedges, a veteran middle east journalist,
Wrote several years later:
"the tragedy was that if
We had the courage to be vulnerable,
If we had built on empathy,
We would be far safer and more secure today
Than we are.
We responded exactly
As these terrorist organizations
Wanted us to respond...
In the recent past, american leaders,
Especially harry truman at the end of world war ii,
Lyndon johnson,
Richard Nixon and ronald reagan
Had reacted radically to the appearance of vulnerability.
Johnson, most dramatically, pointing to his
Sacrifice of the great society
To his fear of failure in vietnam.
Perhaps this is the achilles heel
Of the american political process.
Compassion or empathy is in short supply
And easily dismissed by those
Who are tougher as naivete or softness.
Yet it is compassion for the other
That, in the end, has distinguished
Our greatest leaders...
Be it washington, jefferson,
Lincoln, roosevelt
Or on other fronts,
People such as martin luther king.
Had al gore been in office
Instead of being derided by the media
As a know-it-all who annoyed them,
Might he not have emotionally connected
To a world that had hardened in its hatred of u.S. Policies?
Might he not have acted in humbler fashion
And pursued the terrorists
With the traditional structures
Of diplomacy, intelligence services
And firm police action?
Would not the same results have been achieved
Without making new enemies that could be perceived
As martyrs to a young generation
Of emerging radicals?
Would he have kicked off
A truly virtual world war iii?
George Bush instead put the world on notice.
Every nation and every region
Now has a decision to make.
Either you're with us
Or you are with the terrorists.
Stone: And framing his right to do so
As a monumental struggle between good and evil.
Imagine any citizen of any country in the world
Being told by a man like this,
"you're either with us or against us."
And imagine how you would feel about america.
Chalmers johnson wrote, before his death,
That "americans like to say the world changed
As a result of September 11,"
But that it was more accurate to say
That america was becoming
"a new rome, the greatest colossus in history
No longer bound by international law,
The concerns of allies
Or any constraints on its use of military force."
The american people were still largely in the dark
About why they had been attacked
Or why their state department began warning them
Against terrorism
In an ever-growing list of foreign countries.
But a growing number finally began to grasp
What most non-americans already knew
And had experienced over the previous half-century.
Namely that the United States was something other
Than what it professed to be,
That it was in fact a military juggernaut
Intent on world domination.
Instead of explaining
The real reasons for the attacks,
Al qaeda's fierce opposition
To u.S. Troops in saudi arabia
And to u.S. Support for israel
In its ongoing struggle with the palestinians...
Bush mouthed platitudes, asking...
Why do they hate us?
He answered for us:
They hate our freedoms...
Our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech,
Our freedom to vote and assemble
And disagree with each other.
How ironic that Bush 41
Had actually squandered world peace
By unleashing in panama
And the first iraq the furies of war.
And that his son, striking out blindly
And virtually bankrupting his nation
Precisely as bin laden hoped he would,
Had now found his destiny
In his father's ancestral genes
As "america's war president"...
In a war that by Dick Cheney's reckoning
Could "last forever."