Comcastrodors, please welcome three-time mobilized, retired U.S. Army Reserve Major Montgomery Granger to the podcast. Major Granger was the ranking medical service officer at Guantanamo Bay from February through June 2002 and authored a book called Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior, an account of his experiences and emotions being duty bound to care for and protect terrorists and murderers just months after the horrors of 9/11. He also served in Iraq at Abu-Ghraib to clean up the prison following the abuse scandal that took place there. Montgomery shares his personal values for the importance of treating captives with dignity and gives a soldier’s perspective on the abuses that took place, the interaction with CIA interrogators, and current US policy on detainment and action against ISIS. He also offers a very personal perspective on the stress deployment takes on soldiers and their families.
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What how long have you been on one of the blogging about the military and terrorism. Hi Yes Well five years or so but since I started writing for The Blaze not everything ends up on my blog. As a branded contributor to The Blaze they have some some rules I mean I could post that after twenty four hours but I’m trying to get paid by the blaze. They have they have standards you know they expect each piece to get at least a thousand hits within twenty four hours. So I try to get my numbers up in hopes of getting paid someday so I’m pretty pretty choosy about what I actually put on my blog because you know if you put something on your blog and you don’t tell people it’s on your blog was so used to putting it on your blog. So I tend to tend to just tweet my fifty thousand followers to my into my Facebook page if there’s something in the news going on like every day there’s something new about right. I recently plugged my Facebook page. A really interesting thing was a film a short film by a military officer reserve officer who’s from Guatemala and became a citizen after becoming a soldier so it’s kind of her story and it’s really interesting so I put that on my Facebook and that’s unusual because it usually just could get most of on there. How’s the reception been for just communications about this. Sometimes it feels like a public response but it is more hyperbolic stances on a subject such as torture. Yeah yeah I think you know I’m kind of isolated in very careful what I tweet. And to whom I tweet it and you know been on Twitter for about five years now and I’m pretty quick to on follow or block people who are hostile. There’s one or two exceptions really exceptions exceptions if I could say that one is. Yvonne Ridley who is a pretty substantial British journalists who ventured to Afghanistan right after we invaded in the fall of two thousand and one and was captured by the Taliban was released and then converted to Islam. She and I have become pretty what I would say respectful sort of a professional exactly think we were intellect is probably in the same level usually with people I befriend I consider them all smarter than me which which perpetuates the friendship because I think I have something to learn from and I think I have a lot to learn from her but I also hold my ground with her you know. But she is the exception to the rule usually I just engage people who are interested to know more about the real get now that I know right. I think you know I think you describe mana Matthew’s relationship to it’s very complete sort of but also the most valuable aren’t they. You know it’ll serve that great prison right after the scandal there and part of my mission was to clean it up and I just I was so shocked when I first arrived because how do you guys feel about foul language usually don’t use it. But we are completely free and open. OK Quite shit hole and. After I had my first tour of the place. You know by then we had moved the detainees out of the hard site where the abuses took place and then to the tent city and in that tent city it was just abysmal and I was so disappointed. You know not just and the people who were there but the command structure. You know I thought Hey I thought we wanted our lesson from the abuse and what are we doing. The guys had showers once once a week and the spigot was outside in the open and it only rose up three feet out of the ground. It was just a speck. So he had to take a cold shower once a week for a detainee. I mean that was just a drop in the bucket which at the Bismarck I thought to myself No wonder there was such House to Lety much of what you had written at least the sort of like institutional I guess is a clash between active combat versus reserve troops as well as as well as the personnel that you would Representatives versus the ones perhaps more operationally oriented. Yeah pretty interesting I served twenty two years and a star in eighty six and by the time the year two thousand rolled around I just accepted a position so I could get promoted to captain. And it just so happened to be with the eight hundredth M.P. Brigade out of uni until Long Island New York which was really the only enemy prisoner of war unit the Army a lot of units. You don’t need unless there’s a war you don’t need a lot of transportation or medical. Who are the bad guy care stuff. And so those units tend to be reserve units and these guys had all been to the Gulf War and had to stand up a steep you know W. facilities for the thousands of Iraqi soldiers that just surrender. Would that conflict was over in ten days so there was kind of a textbook in some ways that we took these guys in as pure W’s because they’re all wearing uniforms and carrying their arms openly and then about twelve to thirteen days later after the war ended they were repatriated. So we didn’t need to get my we didn’t need a stateside detention facility like we did in World War two We kept over four hundred thousand mostly German P.O.W.’s who again were lawful combatants prisoners of war entitled to the privileges and rights of the P.O.W.’s as per the Geneva Convention. Well this relationship you’re describing where like the before person members is not does that does not relate to let’s say the difference between a conventional war against an enemy state versus perhaps a group that is without a mission. What perhaps ISIS or terrorism in general. Yes and no I mean the instance that I like to bring up and I think I mentioned my book as well I just tweeted and blog and written about is back in one nine hundred forty two one eight Dr Foote German saboteurs were put on the United States somewhat caught on Long Island and some in Florida. We got two of the eight to flip on the other six and within six weeks they have been then denied their hideous corpus and a military commission was established. They were tried and six of the eight were executed. Now these cases kill anybody they didn’t hurt anybody even blown the thing up but it was proven that that was their intent in that they did not were not wearing uniforms they’re for we’re not entitled to any of the rights or protections of Geneva Conventions or the Law of Land Warfare. So even a World War two And you can find you know throughout the history of the wars that will field executions of spies and soldiers quote wearing the wrong uniform could be shot on sight. So technically according to the law. More in Geneva Conventions. All the detainees who were captured and brought to Guantanamo Bay could have been shot on sight. They were entitled to absolutely no rights or privileges whatsoever. However as soon as we got there in February two thousand and two our boss who had a direct conversation with Don Rumsfeld we’re told that even though they didn’t deserve the rights and privileges of Geneva we would treat them within the spirit of Geneva and that’s really all we had to here we go OK we’re going to treat him with dignity and respect we’re going care from is we would care for our own soldiers. So we knew what to do that’s who we’re trying to do all our careers. And that’s something that was never disseminated I think to the to the general public. So how does waterboarding two generally treating these pure W. says we are to be your own soldiers. Yeah that is another unfortunate myth that the United States or me or anyone in the Department of Defense has ever been trained or lawfully partakes an inning. Enhanced interrogation techniques including waterboarding. The only ones trying to do that then was it were legal to take it out. Back in two thousand and five when they did it to a handful of detainees which saved many lives for the CIA and that’s above and beyond separate the Department of Defense the military. We don’t do that we’re not trying to do it. It’s not part of our D.N.A. It’s not part of our training. And so when things like that come out we just we all just look at each other and shake our heads and go OK. Secret Squirrel alphabet soup people really I mean it’s in my book disguise or incredible. There was a private plane that landed to get Mahmoud Abbas will be sitting. Coming he goes to the tarmac. They bring this guy out of this private jet. The secret squirrels and they say here and my boss says Tom of course where’s the paperwork. You get a table or can they. There isn’t any. So you know this is their modus operandi. These guys are cowboys but in my opinion and according if you read Don Rumsfeld’s biography he confirms that we had nothing to do with that and then if you read George W. Bush’s autobiography decision points she admits that you know a handful of detainees who waterboarding but it was during the time when waterboarding was an approved enhanced interrogation technique and still it didn’t meet the criteria of what is torture. And I put that definition the internationally accepted definition in my book. And even today water body boarding doesn’t rise to the level of that definition yet it is listed now as torture because President Obama said that it’s torture. What is the definition of torture. If I could find it in a nutshell and it’s about a page or so long but in a nutshell it is causing permanent damage is intentionally causing pain it is damage to a vital organ is pretty substantial. And you know I’m I’m not here to defend it. But being in the military for twenty two years and seventeen of those as as an officer we do take ethics courses and we do study our own manuals in light of you know what is good in honest and clean in America and ninety nine point nine percent of us behave that way. When you’re talking about accusing you know the military of doing this we’ve never done it. We won’t do it. It’s not something that we do. So then how do you explain what happened at Abu Ghraib. Well again Abu Ghraib was not torture it was abuse. Why. Because none of the things that took place rose to the level of the definition of torture. Well it sounds like that you believe that the abuses that happened at these places really boil down to perhaps administrative failings that should the training or the proper Parky of command be implemented these places that you would prevents perhaps more creative solutions from people who shouldn’t be authorized to do so. Here’s a breakdown the breakdown in the chain of command. The highest ranking person I think that was punished might have been an intelligence captain but the highest ranking person I think that actually did jail time was a believe a Staff Sergeant Graner very close to my last day. No relation. But but Sergeant Graner was to me the break down point but also those above him failed and inspecting you know going in places announced. Now usually that’s a sign that you trust your subordinates but in the Army you know before you go off on a mission you physically check everybody’s canting that that’s out down to the wire gets I mean before I went on any combo ways in Iraq and we went to daily carboys sometimes twice a day. He spent about forty five minutes reviewing all the basic necessities. A look at happened on that trip. Every single time. So what happened was when this in SEO when this non-commissioned officer This Staff Sergeant Graner was allowing or encouraging this to happen my belief in the belief of many of those I spoke with an eight hundredth M.P. Brigade who are in charge of the Great that was my unit. Although I wasn’t there was a detached person claim that it was the interrogators who again you going into the alphabet soup Secret Squirrel guys who were encouraged them to do it. Now these were folks from both Towson Maryland National Guard troops who were not even trained to to do detainee ops. They were just thrown in there and that’s no excuse but they were malleable. I can just see and hear an F.B.I. guy or CIA guy saying to them hey no problem we got it from here just do this for us. Hey here’s my card contact you want to get home or you know contact the F.B.I. and we’ll you can come work with us you know just just taking advantage of them and manipulating them. But they needed someone above them to say it was OK and that was the N.C.L.. So what role does torture have in warfare. I don’t know. I really don’t know I mean I’ve been studying since I was fifteen years old Here’s the irony of how I ended up to get my son and Iraq in the job I had since I was about fifteen and been studying enemy prisoner of war. You have out of your family friends who was right. So I got a fascination with it. And there is really no institutional history of torture and in the American military that’s not to say it didn’t happen. Of course it happened. I mean there were stories of them. We have two guys you throw one on a helicopter you can’t shut up the other guys that torture is definitely wrong. But you know if we get hung up on the term torture we’re kind of missing the big picture in the big picture is Who are we as Americans because of these incidents and there was an army. A chaplain who was with the eight hundredth M.P. Brigade during the Abu Ghraib scandal even though he wasn’t at Abu Ghraib. He wrote about it because he was so intimately engaged with those who were there and guys who came back they couldn’t deal with that and were humiliated and shamed because of it and he had a comment that I depicted in my book I give him credit for it. He said you know Americans have to look ourselves in the mirror. You know we kind of glorify car movies violent video games and then when the same people go out and are faced with the reality of violence it’s unacceptable. Are you more arguing that the application of this didn’t so much happen from like a military perspective that even on their preference what it never would have happened. Can’t tame anti-military it’s anti everything that we’re ever taught. You know we’re taught the rules in fact we look at modern movies in our training. You know you look at the heck is that D.-Day Saving Private Ryan right in the opening sequence when they when they finally you know get up on the on the on a ridge. There are many Geneva Convention violations. You know Germans with their hands up get shot right and then there’s this whole scenario with the German soldier that that survives this attack on a on a on a position and they let him go and he ends up coming back to kill them and kill one of them. So you know it’s it’s a juxtaposition but we are taught and trained and are expected to behave in a manner that all Americans should be proud of us and ninety nine point nine percent of us do that every single day and that’s the story that’s not told you know you can. We hear about the alleged torture victim who still get Mo who wrote a book and now it’s going to become a movie. And it became an instant bestseller. Well what about my book. Because you know it’s it’s not dog bites man it’s man bites dog is the story. So whether or not this guy’s telling truth and of course he’s not is beside the point. It’s titillating you know it’s interesting. It fits the agenda of certain people who don’t want to hear what I have to say they want to hear you know what the detainee has to say the poor are mistreated abused on lawful combat Islam us to happily kill us. Behave when they intervene in these detainees situations. I believe that the director of the CIA who I believe answers directly to the president or the N.S.A. National Security. And it’s it’s it has nothing to do with the Department of Defense. In fact there’s an interesting point to bring this out my book as well and I get knowing first that the mission up there were two generals in charge the one star general Marine General Lehnert who was in charge of the incarceration mission and then the chain store General Miller who’s in charge of the interrogation mission now which mission do you think is more important. They wanted to start general in charge. I guess that’s what I heard him tell the one star what to do any time he wants and we work at the pleasure of the interrogation mission because the only reason these guys were kept alive and not shot dead on the battlefield was to get valuable information to save lives. And did we get to get valuable information probably still are getting valuable information as things develop in the global war on terror. But not too long after my unit went home they put one man in charge of both missions the two star general Noah and why did they do that. Well probably to avoid the conflict right. Avoid the conflict out a two star general. Yes chop is the interrogation mission but guess what. He has no operational control whatsoever over the alphabet soup Secret Squirrel guys in S.C. only as a ranking medical service officer or medical US Army medical. Pardon officer with the joint detainee operations group. Well I was from February to June two thousand and two. I had access to all the names and agencies of all the good guys and I’m telling you there were so many John Smiths and Bill Joneses and blanks were under the column for organization that I couldn’t count on all just as a secret people involved in the interrogation. And probably from as many countries as were represented by the detainees because when I was there we had about two hundred fifty three guys and about twenty countries represented in twenty different languages. And I’ll bet you dimes to dollars that’s exactly the representation in the sequel school side of the house. So so I mean how do you have any degree of accountability when the people who are actively making that place work have no idea what’s going on. Yeah it’s kind of funny isn’t it. Well you do your job and you do if you don’t know what’s going on you can’t say anything about it. And what happened at Abu Ghraib after my unit got there to try to clean things up is that the operations were different my unit which is a detachment a liaison detachment that kind of is. Between the brigade and the company level. So we’re kind of the filter guys we’re kind of the overseers the guys who want to make sure Geneva is being followed a lot of wars involved so our office was set up in the in the in processing section of Abu Ghraib and picture a hard site building with no roof and with a sort of a makeshift corrugated tin roof and so you can hear what goes on in every room in the interview rooms. We were no longer allowed to call it interrogation. It was an interview to view. And so because the room was around the corner from where the guys were and processed and temporarily held till they were placed in a in a detention section and the medical section was just across the hallway. Everything was going on in a relatively localized place. You could hear basically what was going on in the interview rooms you couldn’t hear words so much but you could hear the level of noise. So somebody was beat up or hit with a chair or threatened or screamed you to hear it. And there was a twenty four seven up and none of that ever happened when I was there. So we care about how we care about our image. We care about our jobs. You know everyone was ashamed and humiliated I’m still ashamed that you Milly it it that that even took place because it’s not who we are and it’s not who we represent. You know I hope that if you guys ever wear a shirt or own a flag or say the Pledge of Allegiance or take your hat off at a ballgame that you can be proud of that flag and it’s the same flag that we were in our uniform every single day in combat out of combat in the detention center and we all want. Keep out of that and this is like a stain on that flag and it really bothers us that this happened. And so we were actually committed to make sure that nothing like that was ever going to happen again if we can help it. So you know these these tortured documents that Congress put out not too long ago had nothing to do with the military had nothing to do with Department of Defense or the army which is by the way the only branch that trains to hold detainees. Everything to do with the CIA as an attorney and Sirius was about an actual holding. You know they’re not trained to do that. Not until the war started and then I’m sure they had some cursory training about you know holding detainees etc Does torture have any history of working. I don’t know but even on Ridley interviewed me in a forty thousand word section of her dissertation that she says she’s going to publish them. And she claims that her research showed that definitively torture does not work that ends up that the person being tortured will say anything they believe the torturer wants to hear to make it stop. If you talk to John McCain will probably say the same thing. Her personal relationship with him but I think that’s that’s why the interesting thing about waterboarding comes up because even though torture is not a reliable method waterboarding seems to be pretty effective. And why is that. Well we could probably definitively say that people who were water boarded tended to give us information that was useful. And throughout history waterboarding has been used by many different militaries. But it is a technique. Like it is something that an amateur cannot produce the same results as an expert but I did hear that Sean Hannity had volunteered to be water boarded and spent a few years since he’s actually looking out of the sense of drowning without actually the threat of drowning if you bought a boat or by an expert if you not waterboard by an expert. Yeah you can you can suffocate. I forgot who the journalist was was either Chris Hedges or Christopher Hitchens I believe is dead now but he had actually volunteered for the procedure and have written about it and described it as an almost sadomasochistic relationship with your captor. It’s like your own right. You’re only reaching very brief places. You’re very briefly in terror and then are like rescued and from that it has this bizarre volved. He also called it which then leads into prison psychology and prison Psychology says and this is why we were so upset when we got to get mo that they wanted to treat everyone like you know isolated criminal everybody had their own cell and had to be escorted by two M.P.’s at a time we were very upset with that because that did not play into our hands and prison Psychology says you want to keep them fat and happy because then they are less dangerous to themselves and others and are more compliant and co-operative that scenario was set up to us by those who had no background or experience in detainee operations. It’s starting to sound a little bit like the later chapters of one nine hundred eighty four breakdown of them sort of hang it all that it just wasn’t set up right. If you if you treat people like animals they’re going to behave like animals. If you treat people like a human being somehow later they’re going to come around and behave like a human being and that’s really what you want from a captive you want information. You want to be front you want to be relaxed and trust you and believe that unless they cooperate and tell you everything you want to know they’re never going east. And that was on your mind. It was on your mind completely and again and again and again by the current administration. I was involved in the release of the first detainee that was repatriated from Guantanamo Bay and I talk about it in the book. And this guy had the strangest behavior we nicknamed him Wild Bill because his behavior was so bizarre. He would hang things from his genitals. He would take bites out of this flip flops. He would you know throws bodily fluid on the gorgeous many of them did and still do this while I was there. This this guy got there when I was there and immediately started showing some very bizarre behavior. Well two things were going on with him. Apparently he was scared to front office meds and he was a heroin addict going cold turkey. So you can imagine the complicated behavior. What do you think is going on and what he said to us when I say I was on the repatriation mission. Bush tapped his officers to take this guy from the windward side to the leeward side for his freedom bird. So I actually drove the Humvee that he was in and we took along with us. And a nurse a psych nurse and we took along an interpreter. And once we got to the leeward side waiting for his freedom we hid out in abandoned hospital to hide from the from the press because that’s where they were sequestered on the leeward side. So while we were hiding in the sky we got into conversations with them. It was very interesting because he admitted to being a heroin addict in Kandahar and along came the Taliban and offered him heroin to take up an A K forty seven so he did he get caught up on the battlefield. But to get and could no longer partake in heroin and apparently one was off his meds. So he got on the plane we sent him back we kind of felt good about it because you know he was declared to be no longer a threat to the United States of America nor an intelligence asset. It’s so easy to manage. It sounds to me like you’re arguing that having dignity for our enemies particularly when we imprison them is both. One I suppose matches our values as a country and to use war in our intelligence. Absolutely absolutely but that’s not betray the mainstream media the mainstream media portrays this is you know given as a gulag is absolutely the opposite. It’s the finest military detention facility on earth and the I.C.R.C. or the international community across physicians I work with there Toby unsolicited nobody does detention operations by the Americans and it happened again I was escorting a female I.C.R.C. physician to the camp on expection And she she really didn’t want to see what we had today. She wanted to see the hard site where the Iraqis controlled Iraqi prisoners. She said they abuse them daily. She said I’m not worried about you guys you guys are the best in the world at this. But that story never gets told because the I.C.R.C. is sworn to secrecy. They’re never going to issue a report saying the U.S. is the best at what they do. I mean the biggest complaint they had i get no was that we would take the candy out of them and worries for the lunch meal as a behavior modification technique. They said we should we should give them a whole meal that was the biggest complaint. So all of these detainees are part of a broader war. Air or how how big of a threat does terrorism posed to United States. You know after all the changes that have been made post nine eleven will never know and you know what they say is what we do know is only the tip of the iceberg. They will never know the countless scores and scores of plots and things that have been forwarded in fact if you go online there’s a there’s an organization and trying to think of a name right now but they claim that over five hundred terrorists have been convicted in U.S. federal courts since nine eleven five hundred if they’re only a little over three hundred in federal prison where the almost other you know where the two guys in your neighborhood and who were plotting to cut people’s heads off whether they’re making pressure cooker bombs part this might be more of the conspiracy theory but I have heard that organizations like the N.Y.P.D. trying to pad their numbers of terror investigation in order to draw more federal funding to their wider military operations. Well and by P. doesn’t really have a military operation. What I don’t know maybe they do maybe they don’t but I think the reality is when you get right down to it is to people that really want to stay ahead including all those guys on the five guys that they let out to get back Bergdahl and these guys really want to kill us and I just ask anybody. They really do want to do that just like ISIS. Do you see the United States winning or losing the war on terror. I don’t think we’re winning. But I also don’t think we’re losing. Well it’s an interesting position that Obama has decided to not play the traditional game you know worse that we win the political military goals are the same. Or two in Wash we lose or don’t win the political goals in the military goals are not the same. If you told the military to win in the end it would have been over in a heartbeat because it would have been committed. We wouldn’t mind Haiphong heart bomb the hell out of annoyed. We would have stopped the infiltration and invaded the North and it would’ve been over. But then we may have been we might have been faced with the reality of the Chinese coming in but I really don’t think they would have done that but you know hindsight’s fifty fifty but the point is made. Currently in the global war on terror the political goals much different than the military goals. If we want to really degrade and destroy ISIS then you need to have the Marines there and the second Airborne. Take it back and then do a Middle East Marshall Plan. I mean look at over seventy years at the end of World War two We’re still in Germany Japan Italy countries we defeated in World War two Why are we still there so that we can project our power and influence and keep keep our interests protect. I was I think I have heard that some people really like being stationed at some nice places around the world. I visited my brother when he was the Air Force in Kaiserslautern Germany was pretty nice. But you know we were friends with them. We didn’t conquer them to control them. You know I will announce my grandfather saying except I was Pearl Harbor. Yeah but you know look at Japan how they love baseball but I think that you know look at Italy Japan and Germany and some of the most prosperous peaceful countries in the world the last seventy years in your mind if we had a focus. If if the public reaction of the political focus was totally behind. And the mission that we could get a permanent presence in the Middle East could enrich the area. I’m telling you the man on the street Iraqi and my favorite thing in Iraq was going out on Fridays to the local villages and play in Santa Claus because they’re just human beings like you and me. They just want to live in peace raise their families you know and work and live and love. That’s all they want to do. You’ve mentioned several times. Why does America have an interest in worrying about ISIS. It’s complex isn’t it. Because on the one hand you have a military who’s completely up in arms amongst ourselves pretty much over the complete incompetence of what’s going on now that men and women died to to make peaceful the cities that have now become ISIS controlled. That is a huge psychological emotional burden on the military. It is devastating to us that that happened you don’t really hear that. You don’t feel that as an American less than one percent of Americans are in the military. You know it’s it’s not a reality for you but for me in my brothers and sisters and those who are still serving it hurts so bad that this is happening and you know what when I left there I felt in my heart and soul that I would be back I’d be able to take my family back and tour some of the older civilize sites on the planet and enjoy Iraq for what it is an amazing place. I had a when I taught physical education and coached baseball in New York City. I had the son of Iraqi diplomat on my baseball team. I had the son of an Israeli diplomat on my baseball team. Plan together between Israel and Europe and they play together they were on my team it was my school for humanities and you know we got a lot of the U.N. workers kids who couldn’t afford to send them to the UN school which a private school and I’m still in touch with a cop who’s Iraqi guy going to college get a degree in Colorado and having a wife and family join the Reed joining us reserves. I mean the culture of Iraq is ancient. So do you see this balance of power shift with ISIS as you see things get overtaken in Iraq. How do you see this working out in the near future do you see an expansion of Syrian power. You see Iraq being able to beat them back. Do you see ISIS as a stable state. It’s a good question. Obviously there’s Iranian interests when I was in Iraq there were Iranian interests and I spent six months in Ashraf which was an enclave in east central Iraq. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of the Mack or the P.M.O. I but the Macor the dino cock or people’s organization of your hand. These were expatriate nationalist Iranians who wanted to invade Iran from Iraq and kill the mullahs. These were Saddam Hussein’s henchmen. These are the ones who put down the Kurdish rebellion without firing a shot because they lined them all up in the streets and ran them over with their armored vehicles. And our job because when we went in an April two thousand and three was to protect them from the Iranian secret police. Because even then even. When we were there. The infiltration from Iran was rampant. We were the only forward operating base in Iraq that didn’t receive incoming from the surrounding insurgents because they so feared the MEK and the MEK didn’t have weapons when they were there. They threw up their hands and surrendered and we took away their toys. But they were allowed to keep that city. That’s so interesting because I think the first rule I suppose public view or exposure to that sort of secret police body happened during the Arab Spring and protesting movements when you see just like an mass sort of whippings and hangings and control of protest movements here the Iranians are pretty bad guys and their influences is irrefutable now in Iraq. And the Russians the Chinese Those are the real players over there now you know we’ve kind of abdicated politically and militarily this idea that we can do anything affective through the air I think I read the paper today that we’ve killed the State Department our White House announced that ten thousand ISIS have been killed in nine months through the bombing campaign. You’re right and so what. It hasn’t really slowed him down has it. And apparently the cover was blown when the suggestion was made that maybe we should have forward observers in Iraq and Syria telling our pilots where the bombs should go. And now there’s a debate in the industry of whether or not we should actually expose our people to possible deaths and capture by having them on the ground telling you know highlighting with lasers exactly where the bad guys are. So this campaign really has been a farce from the beginning I mean almost. Eighty percent of the planes come back with their ordinance still under their wings. So it’s a big joke really well and that leads to an interesting point. I remember I forgot who his name was but he had done that he was an officer of get my one hundred sixty Minutes interview and he had close with the point arguing that at least we had detained them as opposed to having a policy of just drone strike execution. You know I mean it’s incredible how the Obama administration and I wrote a piece in the blaze about this the reason Obama won’t commit ground troops to Iraq of course we have three thousand there now. But expose them to possible capture or being killed is because he doesn’t want more detainee. Because if you’ve got a detainee he’d have no place to put them because trying to em to get money. So we’re going to put these people we capture you had a couple weeks ago he does this little you know dark OP to kill this. You know ISIS guy captures wife we haven’t heard peep one about the wife says she was captured. We noticed that not one peep anywhere. Where is she. What’s her status. You know what’s going on. What sounds like the political like effort behind closing detention centers is to try to like you would argue to try to make Americans like take more pride in the country. But it sounds of corn to you that the outcome of that is almost precisely the opposite at least in execution. Here you don’t you know want to close down the fact you want to fill it out. You want the bad guys to know that if you’re bad and we capture you you’re not going to meet all of you not going to get you seventy two virgins. You’re going to get them. And you going to stay there until hostilities are over which is what the Geneva Convention. BALDWIN warfare say on the other hand if you stay out there guess what. Obama doesn’t want to capture you. He wants to kill you and he’s going to do with the drone even if you’re an American citizen that he will come after you. In one case he was a nasty. Yes he was an American citizen. Right. Which complicates his whole rationale for want to close Gitmo it’s embarrassing when you know you treat these people dignity and respect and we will get him out of there. Well they’re being treated with dignity and respect. It is the finest facility and it seems like every time you talk about ice and you know the Obama administration and just the themes and I’m kind of reading between the lines here is that you know America’s not really committed to this to this war effort. And my question to you is need to be more committed to this or should we just I don’t I don’t worry I don’t know it’s a Gets confusing isn’t it when your political goals are different than your military goals because he’s playing with us like we’re with these plastic soldiers on a little toy map. You know it’s like oh yeah we’ll put these guys here and then they won’t do that and I will put these guys here and then they won’t do that. That’s not how you fight a war. Sherman and Grant showed us how to fight a war. It’s total war. It’s if if you’re going to fight fight to win. If you’re not going to fight get the brig out of there that’s exactly what Sun Tzu said he said that the most merciful war is total war crush your enemy totally quickly that we harm the fewest number of people and he also said one hundred battles and one hundred victories is not the most skillful subduing the enemy without that all is the most skillful when without drawing the sword and that’s what our focus should be on our focus should be on defeating them in the areas where we may be stronger financially. Electronically. In in all the other ways besides going in there and facing them. Because if we do that they will definitely lose. We could definitely go in there with Marines in the eighty second Airborne and ruin their freakin day instantly. Well so far it does seem like Modern Warfare doesn’t seem to follow conventional formats. Right there are. There hasn’t been a declaration of war by the United States and very. But there’s an authorization. Well exactly. But there seems to be for for violence painted as this weird middle ground. Yes exactly. And that’s not healthy. Well is this a byproduct maybe of who is it our alliances worldwide that they fear just an automatic. I think it’s a byproduct of an administration with among its cabinet members and czars All the President’s advisors having only five or fifty five of them with any military background whatsoever. And one of those being Kerry who was a war protester and Secretary of State was very very last at the side. You know there really is the laughing stock of the world this guy in one of those military people military experience or from the United States Army or Marine Corps officer corps with any combat experience whatsoever. So he has nobody here or people telling him that hey this isn’t how you can do it. So they’re making it up as they go along. Is there an incentive for facing this kind of asymmetrical warfare. I mean other than barbarians and Vikings and that sort of thing. Do we have a parallel in American history not this complex obviously but the our own. Was an example of asymmetric warfare I read and then thank God for the French. You know people really don’t give the French enough credit because without them we probably will be eaten Yorkshire pudding shepherd’s pie. But we we we have brilliant bet that guerilla warfare but at that time we’re pretty good at you know how to be behind trees and shooting guys who red coats on. I mean it was it wasn’t brain surgery was you know survival and that’s what war is war survival and if we want to survive sooner or later we’re going to have to decide whether or not we want to build walls around the United States or if we want to continue what’s worked in the past what’s worked in the past is we going to liberate a country like we liberated Iraq and then we stay and then we have something like a Marshall Plan and then that country becomes one of the most economically powerful and peaceful nations on earth like Germany Japan and Italy. So that suddenly heroine Alex because there’s infrastructure work don’t go to the Taliban for help to go to what hospital. Right right just like this guy that we repatriated. Yeah the alphabet soup and secret squirrels told us a couple weeks after we put him on a street bird that he was shot immediately when he got off the plane and and that that was the state to the heart. But two weeks after that we find an article on N.B.C. on line with this guy sitting on a Kandahar Hospital happy and saying how nice he is likely he was treated by his American captain so the CIA is lying to you. The Secret Squirrel slide two of us were mistaken rob their party they throw they’re laughing about it at the top of act so the collision never ends of these people. Well. It’s part of their D.N.A. It’s what they do and they don’t care who they tell the story to the story and it’s OK because of the CIA you know mention the difficulty of the process being to sensationalize a story the lie the lie. OK OK OK description as a part of me as well I just want to look there if you get caught a cat I am going to remember his name before and on the phone. But there’s this one guy writes for Truthout and I saw him on T.V. a filming God talking to Congress to get to believe you know this guy wrote a book and exposed himself as making up stories. He was a convict heroin at all this stuff but that was telling the truth. Get to be kidding me Bob Franken of C.N.N. was over a get well when I was there and tried Marsalis Lee to get my boss to give him classified information and I want point to get so frustrated my boss he’s a slight guy but he could not drink a moment a little bucket Binah beers which I brought gladly except that they want time Bachna to us it’s like I could believe the Cayman is about he said if you don’t tell me when you’re moving the detainees in this was in April we’re going to move them from Camp X.-Ray to Camp Delta the nicer camp so if you don’t tell me when you move but what you gonna do I’m just going to make it up. Journalist talk for sure and he did he he said they’re going to be moved on the twenty third will be to move them on the twenty third with him on the twenty fourth and constantly my boss when we go eat breakfast at the Navy hospital mess we look at the crawl on C.N.N. which was pretty much the only game in town back then and we’d read things like there was a Camp Victory last night with my boss your boss was a riot because one. There’s a riot never right when they’re all separate anyway. But when the guys are chanting stuff at two A.M. but Bush gets a phone call he wakes me and Seema if you want to go watch is put down all right I said OK if we get a call in like they were all right last night but C.N.N. is telling everybody and we are the same they came out of Bob Franken smell he freakin made it up it wasn’t true it wasn’t based on any facts whatsoever. But it’s a business you know this is a business and we keep the business going you have to tell people things that are exciting and interesting when you when you want to basically was doing it right when you want to know at that time because again C.N.N. was previously only game in town the other news agencies that came there from around the world really didn’t talk to us much. The hometown newspapers however they came with the Iraqis going to lower the tube with the hometown like New York newspaper from New York so the New York papers would come and we get this you know the P.R. guys would come out as a body from New York City you want to know OK you’re from New York City come on over here and they they briefed us they said look Stan you know and you can always only talk about your job nothing about security. You can talk about how you feel about it in your family that’s it. So you keep on your You’re calling on C.N.N. for lying you know the number one we have Bob Franken for lying. OK On expand to all journalists. I’m not I’m not writing that train I’m saying Bob Franken allied told us he was going to lie. That’s all I know if there ends up being like a debate over this in court I don’t we don’t have to appear for I sign a release you covered Well you know you know I mean if you’re if you’re seeing that you know C.N.N. number one competitors Fox News I assume you watch it. How do you know what you’re on biased opinion on Fox News. I think they’re like everybody else there are human beings they make mistakes. You know do they try to be fair and balanced they say they do but you know what other news agencies have. You know both sides as well. I’m not going to say Fox News is and they’ll be all but they are the only ones who reach out to me and are interested in what they thought and felt about get my When the things that are going on back and forth they get my C.N.N. called me up and want to have me on to be more than happy to be on C.N.N. or M S N B C or anybody else to do a better journalism and anyways these days. Absolutely absolutely. You guys are awesome. Well thank you so much Michel. You know I think we appreciate that actually means a lot coming from you. I think to be fair and you’re listening which is really cool. Little do you realize we actually have an agenda and we’re just lulling you in just to say it’s complacency and when you don’t realize that we’re going to pound the I want to talk for two hours publish five minutes of it and I’m going to answer you know I got paid. So my dad took a very big interest in this interview he actually sent me a few questions because there was one is the story that you’re sharing personally he was saying that my great grandfather his grandfather served in World War One and my grandfather his father has served as an Army private during the Cuban missile crisis. Well there are two babies at home and my grandfather had greatly discourages children from joining the military and the family has not done that since and the question was What does the non-military community need to know about military families and what can we do to personally respect and support them. I noticed that a great question. I am grateful that you chose to ask that when I got back from Iraq. Back I was angry I was angry that it seemed like nobody here knew or cared that families had been separated. The people were getting blown up and dying so that they could live their lives and not think about us. And then it hit me. Gees that’s why it’s for I serve so all the people back at home can have a normal life and I lost the bitterness. The thing I write about in my book I think that was the most difficult and painful was being separated from my children. Theodore being one of them who was born two days before I left for training forgive me and the guilt that I felt there is a book that you can read that of anything I have ever read can best help the non-military person understand what we go through and by we I mean the serving military person and then the spouses at home. It’s called Operation I’m coming to have a personal narrative in the book called Theodore. There are one hundred authors for the book who was put up by Random House in two thousand and six. Operation Homecoming. It was edited by his last name is Carroll ANDREW CARROLL And if you’ve heard of the story taking chance I think Kevin Bacon was in an H.B.O. movie about it. A Marine captain who decides that he wants to squirt the body of a killed soldier back to some town. That’s one of the stories in the book. It’s a visceral It took me two years to read it even though I authored a story in it and Operation Homecoming is a book every single American can. Should read. They just came out with an anniversary edition I think and March twenty fifth teen it’s on Amazon and it is the quintessential if you want to know what it’s like to be left at home or to leave home and absolutely positively most difficult thing I have to do is sleep my family in two thousand and four for Iraq because I’m not going to get my get was not a war zone. I’m going to freak in Iraq and just before we board the plane broke down and on the plane I figured it out and some of the old timers had told me this. They said to function properly as a soldier you have to accept your own death. You have to mourn your death. You have to mourn the loss of your wife and your kids to be able to function on the battlefield. Hurt Locker goes into this. If you’ve seen that movie if you haven’t watched it again because the opening caption says it all you know war is a drug and it’s easy for a soldier to get addicted to a soldier’s life especially in a combat zone because you do so to stay alive to protect yourself emotionally mentally psychologically and those who can’t do that. Those who don’t accept that they’re going to die or don’t function well and they get themselves killed or somebody else killed and not functional on the battlefield you have to accept that and that’s the thing that. How could the non soldier understand or know that. And how do you communicate that to them that some guys and gals who do that when they come home again cannot adjust to the civilian life. They just can’t fit in. They’re dead already they say goodbye. But they’ve mourned for them. They mourn their armed. Is there a way to welcome them back to our homes to their homes. There are lots of organizations out there who could do this but it’s complex because each of us are different we respond to different things but I think the thing that really touches our heart and they touched my heart was you know it’s a real simple thing. But thank you for your service. That means the world to us. You can blow us over with the feather. Thank you for your service because to us that means everything to you to thank him for his service with it’s corny It’s not corny. Actually that was the first thing my dad wrote in his list of questions which are at the outset to thank him for his service and it’s very touching to me and I appreciate that I was going to firm as a question what’s your opinion on it was and I suppose I suppose I would be much easier to fault going for her. Actually it’s a beautiful thing to say to a veteran and to a Viet Nam Veteran before you say that is Utah welcome home because they weren’t welcomed home and the same with with Korean War vets. My father was a Korean War that he said they were ignored when they came home he said Korea was not a popular words a forgotten war. So if you know Korean War Viet Nam vet the first thing you say to them is welcome home. And then you say thank you for your service and that is a one hundred percent guaranteed appreciation. Well that is a very touching point to get to. Matthew do you have more questions. I don’t think we’re going to get any better than that. Yeah well I would like to say I think if there’s been a real pleasure talking to you today that’s been illuminating and I suppose that in actually stated it well. Driving it so thank you for your service we’re very grateful for your support and especially very grateful for this opportunity to talk to you and answer questions. It’s been a pleasure and an honor to do it. Thank you. It’s the same for us and we will be we’ll be in context early. OK so I’ll keep in touch with you guys through Twitter and social media and you can email me with that information comes along and I’ll do whatever I can to promote you know I think you know this is actually been one of the one of the most satisfying interviews I’ve been on because I know that we probably don’t share the same political views but we avoided any conflict there and to me that that’s very special. I appreciate it. Until next time ago our tigers God bless them thanks again Take care.
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