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Politically High-Tech
250- U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post-9/11 Era with Matthew Warshauer
Join me, Elias, as we embark on a profound historical exploration with Matthew Warshauer, a distinguished history professor at Central Connecticut State University. We tackle the intense subject of 9/11, contrasting it with another monumental event in American history, Pearl Harbor. What have we learned from these transformative moments, and how have they shaped the generations that followed? Matthew shares his unique insights into the "9/11 Generation," offering a fresh perspective on how this event is perceived by those who lack a personal memory of it. We discuss the fading emphasis on 9/11 in educational curricula and debate whether it has truly eclipsed Pearl Harbor in historical significance.
The episode takes a critical turn as we scrutinize the implications of the Patriot Act, passed in the chaotic aftermath of 9/11. Matthew and I confront the uneasy balance between national security and civil liberties, as we question the necessity of such sweeping surveillance powers. Through a thoughtful exchange, we reflect on the strategic intelligence of Osama bin Laden, the unpreparedness of U.S. leadership, and the economic and security consequences that followed. We also delve into the root causes of terrorism, examining the geopolitical motives behind bin Laden's actions and the complex narrative of retaliation against perceived injustices.
We round out our conversation with a deep dive into the global ramifications of U.S. foreign policy post-9/11. From the aggressive stance of President George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil" speech to the lasting impact on international relations, we explore how these policies have shaped modern conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond. Matthew and I advocate for a critical, analytical approach to understanding American history and foreign policy, urging listeners to engage thoughtfully with the nuanced narratives that define our world. As we conclude, we underscore the importance of educating future generations on these pivotal events and encourage listeners to explore further content from our insightful guest.
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Welcome everyone to Politically High Tech with your host, elias. I don't know, I seem tone deaf to sound this exciting, because the topic we're going to get to is it's going to revive some old wounds, especially you've been suppressing it, trying to avoid it, but it's just, I don't know. I'm just that curious cat. You know it might get me killed, my curiosity, but it's insatiable. Whatever, don't tell me not to stop investigating it. I'll be curious about it because it's just not gonna work. I'm stubborn in that faction now.
Speaker 1:Now, I like to know, I like to know, I like to know. Okay, so let's talk about something very contemporary. You know I've talked about history of world war ii. Some of you are tired of that, I get it. This is more recent.
Speaker 1:You remember 9 slash 1, 1, 9-11? I'm sure many of you do, except for you who were born after it and that's probably me being cruel to you. I'm sure they jammed that down your throats. Youngsters, I mean by youngsters I would say a decent amount of Gen. Alpha. I'm going to use the safe route. Alpha Z experienced this indirectly.
Speaker 1:Okay, but we're going to get into it because I think we need to know about this and our country is still operating in this direction today for sure, if you want to say otherwise, I will have to strongly disagree with you, unless you're living, I don't know, in the Amish community somewhere or in a cave, you know, maybe you're not paying attention to that, or very alert. Let's just say that, because you can be informed and still not be alert, that we still have our policies and the way society is functioning, it's still functioning, as 9-11 is such a new thing. And don't get me wrong, when we talked a little about this off-air, I don't mind upgrade security. I'm not against that. I think it'd be foolish not to have upgrade security. But and let's just say it went a bit overboard. I'm not gonna take the thunder away for this expert here, believe me. No, no, no, no. He knows a lot more than me. Here. I'm just, I'm creating the starting, I'm just guiding this conversation.
Speaker 1:So, with that minor monologue out the way, let's welcome a professor expert, not just a 9-11, by the way, there's other stuff I'll talk about at the end, especially when I plug him in. He's not just a 9-11 guy. Okay, don't say that. That's like just put him in the box, don't do that. But he is an expert at that. So let's welcome Matthew Warshower. Sadly, it might include war, because some of the policy did thrive, especially the ones in Iraq, and we still got this instability in the Middle East. You know there's some connections with that people. So let's welcome him. And I'm going to be quiet with my monologue because I could go on for a while. I could easily extend this to five minutes, but I'm not going to. I want the experts to have their say here. So, matthew, what do you want the listeners and the viewers to know about you before we get started?
Speaker 2:Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. So I'm a professor of history at Central Connecticut State University and I've been really, really fascinated with the 9-11 for, you know, about 10, 12 years now. I've spent a lot of time reading up on it and interviewing people and researching, and I've been teaching a class at my university called the 9-11 Generation for about nine, 10 years now and it's been a really, really interesting experience, because when I first started the course, I could go into the class on the first day and ask hey, what do you remember about 9-11? And my students would always have vivid memories.
Speaker 2:And then I had to get to a point where I consciously had to change my question to hey, what do you know about 9-11? Because I was watching the generation float through my classroom. Right, I mean, I got older every year, but my students in that 17, 18 to 23 or so age range. I got a new crop every single year and I'm literally watching this generation pass through my classroom. And so I started asking them you know, what do you know about 9-11?
Speaker 2:So in about the last two, three years I've had to again change the question and now I ask so, does 9-11 even matter anymore? Because these kids have zero memory of it. They still know it's something big. Many of them, you know, stood every year on September 11th in their classrooms as they were growing up and having a moment of silence. But there are very, very few teachers and schools that are actually teaching about 9-11. So this generation of kids now are growing up with, yeah, this big thing happened. And a student asked me recently. He goes yeah, when did they stop commemorating Pearl Harbor in schools? And I was like, wow, that's a really good question because that's where we're getting. And I know here in Connecticut that there's a number of towns and school districts in the last few years that have stopped having that moment of silence because we've moved beyond the time, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let me add into that because I did talk to one of my friends about that. I said, yeah, I think 9-11 has been a replacement of the pearl harbor harbor remembrance. Yeah, I just said I'm gonna be honest, I don't agree with that, because pearl harbor was still significant and it was a direct attack from japan. They dared to wake up the sleeping giant and look what happened. Okay, that was japan's arrogant foolishness and greed to do that sadly killed a lot of servicemen. God rest their souls. Yes, I'm a christian, deal with it if you hate it, and but now replace it with 9-11. I to compare it. Yeah, thousands of people die, but this was more innocence in a sense that a lot of them don't have. They have no, too limited military experience, while the ones that got killed, those thousands of people, have much more military um experience. But so I think those are just two separate events. I think they are false equivalencies. I don't know if you agree with that.
Speaker 2:I want to hear your opinion well, I, I think that there are some equivalencies that are correct and then some that are very, very wrong. And I think, at the most basic level, it's a surprise attack on America. So, at the most basic level, and it leads us to war. Right. So I mean that's the most obvious similarity. Of course, attacking Japan or, excuse me, attacking Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, it's not in the continental United States. The last time that the United States was attacked, prior to 9-11 on our homeland, was actually in the summer of 1814, in the war of 1812, when the British invaded Virginia and Washington DC. Right.
Speaker 2:For me, the big misnomer in trying to equate 9-11 as Pearl Harbor is that the Japanese and their partners, the Germans, posed an existential threat to the existence of the United States and other nations. That is not what 9-11 posed. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda did not pose an existential threat. They could not fundamentally destroy the United States. So the reality of what 9-11 really was and I don't think a lot of people think of it this way it was a trap, it was an assault on, and we can talk about questions of innocence and right Bin Laden viewed it in a very, very different way. He, he went to great lengths to explain why American citizens were were valid targets. But the real thing is that his plan was he was going to attack the US with the expectation that they were going to then come to the Middle East with their army, and he was going to use that as a rallying point for Muslims all over the world to come and kill Americans. And this was his experience in the 1980s in the Afghan, soviet Afghan war, and that's how he defeated a superpower, right, I mean, obviously with US help.
Speaker 2:And that's another part of the story that I think is really fascinating. But so I think there's some pretty big differences between Pearl Harbor and 9-11. And that and that biggest one I actually wrote an essay on this, that that's, that's out there, it's at its title 9-11 was not Pearl Harbor. Biggest one and I actually wrote an essay on this, that's out there and its title 9-11 was not Pearl Harbor. And it's that idea that Al-Qaeda there's no way Al-Qaeda could take over or destroy the United States. We had time to think about the best means of dealing with bin Laden. He didn't represent a nation-state, he represented a terrorist organization. Two very, very different ideas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I gotta say that it's well explained. I'm not gonna argue. You want me to argue with him? Well, you could do it in the comments section. Maybe you'll argue on my behalf.
Speaker 1:I'm a factual kind of person. I know when to interject, disagree and all that. I'm a factual kind of person. I know when to interject, disagree and all that. I'm arguing as an expert here. Don't expect that from me.
Speaker 1:These are all very, very obviously valid points. I don't kiss butt. These are just facts and we need to remind ourselves these days because we get caught up with this tribalism thing. Oh, I always gotta defeat the other narrative. The other narrative could always be wrong. No, maybe you got one piece of narrative right and the other one got another piece of narrative right. Maybe you compare notes and you find the truth together. So it's an on and off. It's my way to highway Act with that other person's point.
Speaker 1:No, okay, be a grown-up, be a grown-up, be a grown-up. That's what I'm saying to you. I know if I'm lecturing you. Yeah, I am lecturing you because some of you in the comment section have shown lack of maturity and intellect, just being honest. So I don't think being kind to you is going to get through your thick skull, okay, and if being mean doesn't get through your thick skull, okay. And if they admit, and if being mean doesn't get through your thick skull, then get out of my podcast. You're wasting my time, all right.
Speaker 1:Anyways, before I attack my trolls and the unrational haters out of my criticism but not irrational hate, but let's get back to the topic. You know, I just think there's so much angles we go about this. I think I want to start with bad policies and then we could get to the youth. Yeah, I want to think about policies, or how, or maybe good policies, wherever you want to go at it. Just uh, yeah, because I think I want to talk about policies and how that shaped it, and I mean the obvious example to come up with is the Patriot Act. I mean, I'm sure that's a good one. That would be the starting point. How did it shape America to come up with these draconic policies or other policies that a lot of us are not aware of? I mean, go right ahead.
Speaker 2:I mean, the Patriot Act is certainly the one that people point to the most in terms of you NSA and for local and state law enforcement departments to really, really ramp up their ability to surveil people. And you know the Patriot Act is passed so incredibly quickly in the aftermath of 9-11. There's, I mean, a real question as to whether or not you know too many congressmen and this happens a lot with legislation whether they even read the thing right and when you really start digging into it, a lot of the things that the Justice Department and other agencies wanted these had been wishlist items for them for years and years and years Make it easier to surveil people, make it easier to do searches without warrants right, sneak and peek searches, they called it which in a lot of ways defied, violated the United States Constitution and the Fourth Amendment, and so you know there had been the goal of many agencies, many security agencies, to get these kinds of powers well before 9-11 and they'd always been rebuffed. But once 9-11 happens and you have that huge amount of fear that exists out there and most Americans, if you ask them, there's tons and tons of polling on this. You ask them there's tons and tons of polling on this and I include a lot of this in the book Creating and Failing the 9-11 Generation and I write about. When Americans start getting polled at them, they're asked you know, how do you feel about the Patriot Act?
Speaker 2:Most Americans have this, this mentality that, well, I'm not a criminal, I'm not a terrorist, I didn't do anything wrong.
Speaker 2:So, since that's the case, what do I care if the government looks at what I'm doing and checks and sees every single book that I'm ordering, right, everything that I'm doing online, that they can access my emails whenever they want, right All of these things that they could potentially, if they think there's something going on with me, they can do, as I said, sneak and peek, meaning they can go into my home and check things out and not notify me that they've done it.
Speaker 2:Lines for a bunch of the phone providers and they are just combing through with these high-tech computer programs. They have combing through tens and tens and tens of millions of phone calls of Americans that have nothing to do with issues of terrorism. And when you ask Americans well, which would you rather be safe from terrorism or not? Have your amendment rights violated and most Americans at this time are choosing safety, you know, the fear that comes in the aftermath of 9-11 is a powerful thing, and it allows the government to do you know, really ramp up its investigative powers in huge ways, just like you say it was a trap.
Speaker 1:It was a trap of fear and it is a perfect storm for them. I love how you put it. You know these security agencies have their wish list be manifested. It's all this perfect time jamming in there. I'm sure most Congress people don't even read their 100, 900 page, 1,000 page law, whatever they passed. Yeah, they are that long and I'm sure a vast majority of them don't even have the time to read it. So when they pass you something, I'm sure a lot of them weren't even aware of it. Correct me if I'm wrong there, but the fact that it was passed that quickly to me it's troublesome. I was like, wow, they debate on so much other things and stall and delay it, but when it came to this, both Democrats and Republicans were saying yeah, approve.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants to look unpatriotic in the wake of an attack like this. But you know we were talking before we started recording that. You know 9-11, the way that it is pulled off as this plot and it starts as the planes operation, and with you know, khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who we saw a lot in the news this past summer, where he finally you know, he finally plead out to two charges in exchange for not being executed. Right, the trial that you know, he's been held at Guantanamo for 20 years and we still haven't had a trial. Right, but. But his idea was the planes operation, with 10 planes and bin Laden is the one who, who sort of whittled it down. No, no, no, let's do four. Four planes that the, the operation itself took, cost only four to five hundred thousand dollars, which is just amazing in terms of how much the united states has spent in the aftermath of 9-11.
Speaker 2:But the the really key thing that I want to say about this is that it's a complete. The reason that it works is because it's such a novel plan. Right, they don't have to do, uh, what happened in 93 with the first attack on the south tower, where they pack a, a truck full of explosives. They don't have to do what timothy mcveigh did in 95 in oklahoma city, where he gets, you know, nitrogen and builds a diesel fertilizer bomb. Right, they don't have to amass any chemicals, anything. All they got to do is hijack four planes and they're four for four on the hijackings and three for four on the intended targets, and it works, because it's such a surprise and it's so novel. Once it happens, it's never going to happen again.
Speaker 2:So, with that in mind you know we were talking about the security state how much did we actually have to go about changing with the security state?
Speaker 2:Because we know from, I mean, so much information that was uncovered by the 9-11 Commission that you know, george Tenet of the CIA said the system was blinking red, something very, very, very big was going to happen, and so they had all the warnings. They just didn't put it together, and so the investigative process and everything and all the security, it was all there, right? Are we going to forget that, you know, a year, two years after 9-11 happens? No, we're going to be all over it and our ears are going to be up and we're going to be looking for things in a more careful way, and I mean, the biggest thing is that we underestimated Bin Laden in a lot of ways. We kind of poo-pooed him and thought, ah, he can't really get us, not on the homeland, and that was a mistake. We would never make that mistake again. So again the point is did we really need as big a security changes?
Speaker 1:as occurred, not right, and that was my thing. I said, well, I think they did all these minor attacks prior to that events. I said nothing like this ever happened. That was my thing. I said, well, I guess we just got too egotistical. I said, oh, they can never pull that off, they're going to fail again. Maybe that plane will just hit the ocean or something and that's it. But no, they actually hit the. You know the targets. They hit the Pentagon, of course, the two towers, and I think it's some house in somewhere in Pennsylvania, if I'm not mistaken. I'm forgetting details of that.
Speaker 2:Lands in a field in Shanksville, pennsylvania. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:so you know, yeah, it's impressive for someone who has such a you already kind of pointed out a modest budget to pull off something pretty massive. It is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've likened it to the success, the financial success, of that program. I've likened it to the success, the financial success of that program. I've likened it to it's the return on investment that any hedge fund manager would kill for Right. I mean they shut down the entire airlines industry, they throw the US economy into recession, me into recession. Uh, trillions of dollars spent on war, the development of of tsa, the development of homeland security. I mean, we spend trillions upon trillions upon trillions of dollars and what have we really gotten for it?
Speaker 2:Some people might say, well, we haven't seen that kind of an attack again since then. Well, that may have more do with the fact that we're paying more attention and we're following these organizations, and I think you're right. There was a big element of arrogance here that you know, we defeated the Cold War, we defeated the Soviet Union in the Cold War, with, you know, sort of technically not firing a shot at the Soviet Union, and we bankrupt them, and we are left in the 1990s with this time period of well, what's the next great threat? There is no next great threat.
Speaker 2:China certainly wasn't in the position it is today, and so we're looking at, you know, al Qaeda and bin Laden. And you know what most Americans think they don't understand the complexity of how they developed this program and what bin Laden was doing, and they just sort of assume that bin Laden got really lucky, that he's some you know, he's some goat herder living in a cave, that he's some goat herder living in a cave and he's just the luckiest guy around. And it's not that. He's incredibly smart and he plans and prepares very well and he banked on the fact that the United States would not take him particularly serious and would assume that he couldn't pull off what he was going to pull off.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, let the haters clip that part of what you just said. Oh, atlanta was smart. Oh, matthews is a terrorist sympathizer. That's not the case. I will defend him on that. He is just pointing out that Atlanta was strategically intelligent because America has become very arrogant. I'm going to paraphrase here we were quote, unquote, untouchable nation we, we all came to World War II, all of the Cold War, all this stuff. What's next?
Speaker 2:Laden is. And of course, everybody raises their hand. And then I asked well, how many of you have read something by bin Laden? And all the hands go down and I've actually gotten comments. Well, why would I read something from him? He's a terrorist, he's a murderer, he's evil.
Speaker 2:And I'm like listen, we have known, in terms of security and the history of warfare, you can go back a few thousand years to Sun Tzu in the Art of War, and he's know your enemy. And if you're going to know your enemy and you're going to know how to defeat them, you need to know what their ideology is, what they're saying, how they're influencing people to follow them. And so just go and pick up bin Laden's 1996 declaration of jihad, which, when he released it, very few Americans paid any attention to it. I'm not even sure George W Bush knew that it had been issued, because there's a point at which, after 9-11, he gives a commencement address at West Point and he says he said something to the effective. It's not like they gave us a list of demand, which is exactly what the declaration of jihad is A list of complaints, a list of grievances, and the director of the CIA bin Laden unit, this guy, michael Schauer read he'd been studying bin Laden for a long time, trying to track him, figuring out, trying to figure out a way to get to him, and when he read the declaration of Jihad he got really freaked out.
Speaker 2:He got really freaked out because he's like, wow, this guy's super, super smart and he's a polemicist, meaning that he knows how to make an articulate argument that can convince people to do things right. Right, and that makes him particularly dangerous. And a lot of people think that bin laden you know bin laden's family, you know the guy the guy inherited 10 to 15 million dollars when his father, muhammad, died, and bin laden construction company is still one of the largest international construction firms in the world. Right, I mean, this guy was not some, you know, he was not some local cleric hanging out in a cave. He was very smart and he certainly outsmarted the United States and sucked us into a trap.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I didn't read his whole thing, but I did read things about him. I said, wow, he came from a wealthy family. He was very articulate. I said, and to your point, yeah, I love that quote. Know your enemy? Yes, that's the thing. Oh, we don't want to really think. And I even go to another historical example Mayan, come, you know, that's another one. You got to know your enemy. How well he thinks, how he thinks, is he able to influence people? Well, these, these people who have, you know, intent, I'm just say like that, to get to achieve whatever they're going to achieve. Right, you gotta read. You gotta read these disturbing things, not because we want you to conform to it, it's just to know your enemy. If you don't know your enemy, how are you gonna beat them? How are you gonna predict what they're gonna do next? And that's what people like, especially Osama Bin Laden, banked on. There's only a few people who's gonna know, who cares? I'm gonna surprise them.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, bin Laden actually thought that Americans were getting his messages, that he was that. You know, after 9-11 happens, bin Laden continues writing. He writes literally what is called a letter to Americans. He writes a letter to Europeans, he writes a letter to the people of Iraq. So he's continuing to try and reach out. And in the aftermath of 9-11, he says well, now the American people know why I did this. And the reality is they don't know why he did this, because Americans aren't reading anything by him and those messages aren't making it through. This, because Americans aren't reading anything by him and those messages aren't making it through.
Speaker 2:And the aftermath of 9-11, george W Bush's focus is and he does this from the very night that 9-11 had occurred. Later that evening he comes on the news and he says you know, this is about justice versus evil, this is about good versus evil. And then in his big speech which is I mean it's a really fascinating speech his State of the Union address in January of 2002, which is known as the Axis of Evil speech he says you know, americans are asking why they hate us, and that is what a lot of Americans were asking at the time. And Bush's response is they hate what they see right here in this room. They hate our freedom. And bin Laden responds to that in a later letter where he says well, if we attacked you because we hate your freedom, why didn't we attack Sweden? They're free and so you know. Even I mean, I read for this book. I read a lot of stuff written by people preparing the military for the war on terror, and document after document from military analysts are all going listen, they didn't attack us because they hate our freedom. They attacked us because they hate our foreign policy. It's because we've had troops over in the Middle East pushing American corporate interests and that's why they don't want us there.
Speaker 2:Bin Laden said time and time again that you know you can't have foreign troops on the land of the two holy places, Mecca and Medina, where you know, where the Prophet Muhammad, you know, brought forth Islam. And you know there might be some people, some of your listeners might go. Well, you know we're just doing business. We should be able to go wherever we want and do whatever business we want. Well, yeah, okay, that's true, that's true. Maybe we should be able to go and do our business and send our troops wherever we want, but then you can't argue about and complain about somebody pushing back against you, right?
Speaker 1:yeah, all right then this is what I've said. So like we need to respect their land, you know, and they come here, hopefully they respect our land, you know, and they come here, hopefully they respect our land too. But yeah, if we come there with troops and all that keep causing hostility, I mean you're going to breed other hostility. That's like me punching you in the face, expecting you not to hit back. I will expect you to hit back, right or, unless you're a pacifist, that's a whole other story. But no human being would attack back, especially if I hit you hard. But yeah, it's just, you breed hate once you start disrespecting and, like you said, ejecting American corporate interests into foreign land. No, some of them don't want it. They don't want it at all. I'm not saying it's right what they did with these attacks, but sadly, you reap what you sow.
Speaker 2:And you know, one of the things that bin Laden takes great pains to point out. And again, the point is not to agree with him or justify his views and his position, it's to understand them and to see well, is there anything that he's saying that is true in this? And one of the things that he says is, like you know, america is a democratic nation. The people themselves are the ones who approve the laws and approve policies, and American forces have been in the Middle East killing Muslims and supporting the death of Muslims for years and years and years, makes the statement that muslim blood has become the cheapest and he says since that's the case and since our civilians are getting killed, then we can kill your civilians too. They're they're.
Speaker 2:You know it's open season and you know, whereas, you know how the, the nature of how warfare has, uh, you know, continued. You know you, you said you, you uh talk a bit about world war ii, when we know from the nature of how warfare has continued. You said you talk a bit about World War II, and we know, from World War I and World War II, sort of first world nations develop rules to warfare. I think a lot of rules for warfare are now gone, now that we're in this age of non-nation state actors who are attacking countries. Look at what we're seeing in Gaza right now. You have an attack where there's a couple of thousand people killed and wounded and the response is all right, we kill 42,000, 43,000 people, many of them civilians, many of them civilians. So it's a very dangerous thing when you get into a realm where there are no rules in warfare.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're indirectly involved, but now they're just really directly involved. Now they're not holding back either and, of course, even though these pirates which again the Houthis in Yemen, they are another one they're not fighting Israel as much, but they are attacking ships that are from Western nations or nations that support the West you mentioned Lebanon, and that is actually Lebanon in the 80s is where bin Laden gets the idea of taking down big buildings.
Speaker 2:Gets the idea of taking down big buildings because he sees, uh, american, uh jets come in and attack a couple of buildings in lebanon and they take, they take down two huge buildings. And that's the moment where he goes wow, you can take down our buildings, we can take down your buildings. And that's where they get this idea, where he gets the idea of taking down the twin towers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fascinating. I hope you're getting this listeners. Now I'm being serious. I'm done lecturing you. I really hope you're at least paying attention to it. If you want to agree, disagree, that's fine with me. Just try to be articulate about it. Give some good examples Instead of just saying oh, oh, you're stupid or you don't know what you're talking about. If you're going to say that, at least back it up with a good example and you know, and type your biblical long passages. I'll read it once I get time to see what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Um, but some of you are speaking nonsense in the comment section and those of you who are support. I thank you. I gotta thank you more often for those of you who respectfully disagree. I thank you too, because you're at least keeping the conversation decent and high quality. The one that says you're stupid, whatever. Well, god help you anyways, before I get into that. So we already touched a lot of the history for policy. What changed the trajectory of America? Let's just say, because there's more, there's nothing that can touch us to more holy crap. We got to make sure that we surveil everything so this thing would never happen again.
Speaker 2:Well and we changed in some big ways that I had mentioned. Bush's State of the Union addresses, access of evil speech. You know, I've talked to a number of podcasters and journalists and done some interviews and one of the questions that's been pretty consistent is people remember, oh, there was so much unity in the country after 9-11. There was, you know, so many people came together, we were flying flags and it was when did the unity stop? And I was talking to one guy and I said, well, do you want to know the date? And he goes what do you mean? And I said do you want to know the date that the unity stopped? And he goes what do you mean? There's a date. I'm like yeah, it's the date of George W Bush's State of the Union Address, january 29, 2002.
Speaker 2:He delivered the axis of evil speech and he decided to go down a road that was for the rest of the world. You are either with us or you are with the terrorists. We are going to act and you better come along with us and if you don't, we're going to consider you just as much of a problem as the terrorists are. So it's my way or the highway. And he makes it very, very clear. He talks about the axis of evil of North Korea, iran and Iraq and he makes it very, very clear that he's going to use preemptive action in Iraq and that that's so. It creates division in the United States and huge, huge concerns. It's a major foreign policy change because most American foreign policy had been related to the Cold War, which was all about containment. Right, let's not get in a hot war, let's not expand and make hostilities worse, let's sort of hem them in and keep an eye on them and use surveillance and use special operations units and use the CIA and our statecraft. Right, and the Axis of Evil changes all of that. It says no, no, no, we're sending troops. And we do that.
Speaker 2:And Bush even says you know, this war may not end on our watch, but it will begin on our watch. And he's actually right, because a few years ago, before the you know, the sort of official end of the war on terror, I mean, it's technically not over, but we're out of that rock, we're out of Afghanistan, we withdraw after 20 years in Afghanistan and withdraw in a way that is so reminiscent of Vietnam. It's just shocking and scary. But when we do that right before the end of the war on terror. We've got young men and women joining the armed forces.
Speaker 2:Bush talked about it. It'll begin on our watch. It may not end on our watch, and he's right, because you've got kids coming into the military who don't have any memory of 9-11 and the military actually starts creating courses, classes and boot camps to teach the kids. Well, this is why you're going over to the Middle East to fight, because this happened, you know, 18 years ago. So it's I mean, it's extensive. That axis of evil speech creates a lot of animosity by even some of our closest allies around the country.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's a very profound point. You draw the line in the sand globally, right, yeah, you're with us or you're against us. There's no third option. There's no sit out, sit out, you're part of the enemy which you know. Yeah, that creates. You know, it's one thing to have a tough stance, but sometimes so tough stance and being clear about it draws that line, so okay.
Speaker 2:Well, I just think there's there's a lot smarter ways that we could have gone about it. And you know this isn't just me. This is a lot of people who study international terrorism and and study conflicts around the world. And you know, with the outpouring of support for the United States after 9-11, we had, you know, china, russia, iran these are the nations that had traditionally been opposed to us in the aftermath of World War II, been opposed to us in the aftermath of World War II, and all three of these nations open up their arms and say what can we do to help you? How can we help you? Russia is giving us maps of Afghanistan. China is setting up a special unit to share information. Iran is working with the United States on trying to find a stable transition government for Afghanistan and they helped put the new president, hamid Karzai, in place, because they have networks and outreach into that part of the world and there was an opportunity for the United States to bring nations from all over the world together to engage and discuss the causes of terrorism.
Speaker 2:We still could have been using special ops units like the SEAL teams and Delta and Green Berets, without putting a massive troop placement in the heart of the Middle East. But we of course know that Iraq wasn't really about 9-11. Iraq was about getting into and dealing with Saddam Hussein, who Bush didn't like. It was about getting access to oil. It was about creating another American landing point in the heart of the Middle East and they foolishly believe that Iraq was going to be, in their own words, a cakewalk Right and it turns into a disaster. So you know the Bush administration's decision to go into and to go with this. You know our way of the highway attitude really has bad ramifications for the long term.
Speaker 1:To be honest, I think we had a very bad read on and we underestimated how difficult, and some could say unattainable, this goal was. You know, to put a permanent print. Okay, this is America's landing term, this is our safe zone, so to speak, and spread our democracy, our way of life, to that region. So far it has not been successful.
Speaker 2:Anything's been backfiring, oh yeah Well and there's plenty of people who were telling the Bush administration you don't want to do what you're about to do. This is going to blow up in your face. Don't do it. It's a mistake. They were told that they didn't have enough troops. They sent about 230,000 troops to Iraq and the number that they actually needed was probably more, in the 600,000 range, because going into the country and claiming mission accomplished was actually quite easy. Holding on to the country and not allowing it to devolve into total civil war and guerrilla warfare a much harder thing. And you know the US military. They're not really trained to act as policemen. Yeah, they have their military police units, but the average soldier, they're a fighting force, they're not there to maintain you know good public order and you know what's really remarkable is you know, I know you like World War II. Do you know how long the US when the US started planning and how long they planned before they went into Japan?
Speaker 2:uh no, I will not have a clue they started planning for the invasion of japan in january of of 1942, right, and they set up foreign language and culture courses at major universities all over the country.
Speaker 2:They produced thousands and thousands of of guides and documents of how they were going to deal with the population there, a different culture.
Speaker 2:And you know, when they started planning for the post-invasion of Iraq, about three months before the invasion and even that was they didn't really do anything serious. So it's just, you know, I think as much as the United States underestimated bin Laden and were arrogant about believing we could deal with him and not taking him seriously, the same was very, very true of Iraq and of Afghanistan that we just thought because we are a first world nation, we're number one, we're the United States, we're going to go kick ass and take names and you know, nobody's going to get in our way. And one of the things they also wanted to prove was that Vietnam was a fluke right, that we'll go into Iraq and we'll show you what's what and when it doesn't work out, it actually shows that Vietnam wasn't the flu, believing you could go into a country that really, truly wanted to defend itself and was willing to use guerrilla tactics to do it. That's what's going to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the SOS thing I always compare to is like the Vietnam thing, because even General said the same thing. We are going back to the Vietnam War. Our shortcomings has been exposed once again. History repeats itself because we haven't exactly learned that lesson. So you know it's unfortunate. I want America to do better. I want.
Speaker 2:America to do better too, and that's one of the reasons that I wrote this book, is because the book is it's it's all fortunate. I want America to do better. I want America to do better too, and that's that's one of the reasons that I wrote this book is because, you know, the book is about the nine 11 generation, but it's also for the nine 11 generation. I want them to understand, um how this event impacted them, um, how it created this culture of chaos that they have grown up in, um, and that they've grown up in the shadow of, of towers that no longer exist, and even all of the things that have happened afterwards that you know. It's not that we didn't have partisanship in our government, um, and we've always had partisanship, and it really starts to build in the 1990s, in a lot of ways thanks thanks to, I think, primarily Newt Gingrich, but you know, all of these problems that have existed in our society since the start of the 21st century. It just seems like we are dealing with one chaotic incident after another, and what the 9-11 generation has really come to see is that the people who are supposed to be in charge the adults, the government that they're not doing their jobs, either willfully not doing their jobs or failing to do their jobs. And these kids see that, with the government not doing anything about issues that are very near and dear to them, and that can be, you know, the slate of gun violence in schools and in public places, it has to do with issues of climate change, it has to do with aspects of lack of equality in our society, especially among non-white male groups, right, and they see none of this really getting addressed in any kind of a serious way, and the conclusion is wow, people in government really aren't doing much. They're not getting much done, right, and so part of it is about the way that 9-11 impacts the generation, but part of it is also explaining, well, what actually happened on this day.
Speaker 2:So I have a chapter that's called what Happened. Then there's the question we've talked about. This is well, why did it happen? And so I literally have a chapter that only the type, the only word in the title of chapter three is why, right, why did this happen? Let's understand why it happened.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean we have to agree with bin Laden, but we at least have to understand his rationale, because that's going to determine what our response to this, to this is and then you know, when you go into Afghanistan and you go into Iraq, and you know Colin Powell meets with George W Bush and he he comes up with what we refer to as the pottery barn rule If you go in and you break it, you own it. So, mr President, if you go into Iraq and you break this, you own the hopes, aspirations, the fears, the terror of over 25 million people, and you know. That's where we are. Iraq is still a shambles. It's only last week that Iraq and the United States came upon an agreement on the final US troops ultimately leaving Iraq. So I mean, this is, there's a lot to it. There really is.
Speaker 1:Yep, it's not always, you know, simple okay, one, two, three go the end. No, these are very complicated things. I'm sure there's a lot of things that you either learned it, forgot it or said oh yeah, that's true. And so it's just oh, my goodness, he's very left-wing talking point, he's bread and terrorists. No, he is not. We need to be analytical. Analytical is looking at many sides of this, this issue. Look at the american perspective, look at the osama aladdin perspective. You know it needs to be includes not just oh america, oh America, America, America only. Okay, Osama bin Laden is a cartoonish villain. No, Okay, there's reasons why things happen. Okay, do I support terrorism? Absolutely not, I don't. I'm sure Matthew doesn't either. I could say that with confidence. But we have to be analytical. We have to be serious about learning these historical events and understand why American society is the way it is today. We're still operating in this.
Speaker 2:You want a great example of the way that the United States can be impactful and can change the ideas that other people around the world how they view us. So we send troops into Iraq and we turn Iraq and the Middle East into a chaotic war zone. That results in a massive, massive refugee crisis that countries in the European Union and in the Mediterranean are still literally dealing with right now. And you've got backlashes in very right-wing governments in some of these countries because they're dealing with the problem of immigration. And I think we all recognize, or I hope we would recognize, that any country that has its borders being overrun, even if you feel sympathy for the migrants and the refugees who are coming when more and more and more and more come, you're going to have a reaction to that, especially if you feel like it's impacting your culture.
Speaker 2:So what we do in the Middle East causes such tremendous damage throughout the world. Well, what could you do going the other way, right? So in 2003, you have a massive tsunami that hits Indonesia, right? Indonesia is the most populous Muslim country in the world and there is serious, serious concern that there's not going to be enough medical supplies, there's not going to be enough food supplies, that water is contaminated, people are going to be getting sick from cholera and other waterborne diseases. And what does the United States do? They send in an aircraft carrier naval group along with one of our naval vessels. We have two major naval vessels that are basically floating operating rooms and US troops in uniform are flying helicopter missions and boat missions and they're providing fresh water, medical supplies, medical treatment to the people of Indonesia.
Speaker 2:And how do the people of Indonesia, in the midst of and after that event, what do they think of the United States? They love the United States, a Muslim country that loves the United States. Right, and because we were there with our military, showing that militaries don't only bomb and blow up and kill, and you know how much it cost us to do that A fraction of a fraction of what it costs to use cruise missiles and it's a truly great humanitarian thing. Right? And if we would just think more about these kinds of things? Because bombs and bullets you know there is a place for bombs and bullets, know there is a place for bombs and bullets and there's a place for military action at times. There's no question about that, but it shouldn't be your first and your only option. There's other things that we can do that are more humane, more economical, smarter, more lasting in terms of goodwill. I mean, that's what this world is missing is some goodwill.
Speaker 1:You know what I personally think that's a great way to end the year. You talked about how the youth is being shaped. Even I didn't ask if it's because, I'm going to be honest, I talked about that before. You know, off the record, I didn't know how, how I was gonna go about this, because there's so many angles I'm so curious about, but I think this is a nice. This is like the happy medium for me, there we go I can easily go another hour.
Speaker 1:You're busy adults. You got other things to do. Unless you know he wants to come back, I'll be more than happy to welcome back. No problem, this has been great. I've definitely learned something. I hope you learned something, my fellow listeners and viewers. Okay, I'll be giving a good rating too. Okay, thank you, I appreciate it. Before we end, we gotta do some shameless plug-in for Matthew's behalf here. Alright, let's not leave him hanging. Alright, this is my command to you. Okay, go, just go to his site. Okay, go to his site. He does more than the 9-11 stuff. Okay, he's also a professor. He does Halloween.
Speaker 2:I was going to ask you if you saw any of my Halloween stuff Yesterday. The major newspaper in Connecticut when I am is the Hartford Courant. It's the oldest continuously published newspaper in the country and yesterday on the front page above the fold Was this year's Halloween to Sway. So I do crazy political Halloween and I have pictures from going back years and years and years. I build crazy fucking shit and it's fun.
Speaker 1:Hey, you see, go check the fun side, get to know him more. Okay, that's my call of action. Normally, yeah, I would sell you a little something with a free sample, but no, this is just more check it out.
Speaker 2:Check out the website. It's themindfulprofessororg.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's an organization, so you're not expected to pay for a product for once. So, you cannot say I'm overly commercialized. You can go get the book.
Speaker 2:You can go buy my book. You want to know about this no-transcript.
Speaker 1:Whether you realize it or not and of course my generation and older generations are pretty darn aware of this, For obvious reasons You're living the post-911 world. So whether you like it or not, I don't care. If you don't like it, it's at least reality, but there's ways you can change it. And he gave something hopeful. He's not, you know, hating America. He could be critical and still love America.
Speaker 2:That's the heart of being a good American. That's the history of America, it's always been that of being critical, smartly critical, and still being able to love your country. If you are uncritical and your only answer to America is, you know, wave the flag, love it or leave it, I'm sorry, you're a moron. That is not the history of our country. The the reason that we'd be able, we've been able, to shape the country that we've been able to shape from the beginning up to today is through critical insight exactly.
Speaker 1:Check out his facebook page as well. Let me just be more thorough here. Check out. If you want to get very, very social, yeah, get the book. That's the most commercial thing you get. If you've been curious, I'm sure this is. We're just scratching the surface here, just scratching. Go deep into the core, get this book. Okay, all right, anything else you want to add before I end this? I'm good, sir, thank you. Thanks for your time. I appreciate it, no problem. So, from whenever you start listening to this podcast and actually survive this audio and visual onslaught, you have a blessed day, afternoon or night. Thank you.
