Original subtitles

Martin luther king jr.: A nation that continues year after year

To spend more money on military defense

Than on programs of social uplift

Is approaching spiritual death.

Henry wallace: The source of all our mistakes is fear.

Out of fear,

Great nations have been acting like cornered beasts,

Thinking only of survival.

George w. Bush: Every nation in every region

Now has a decision to make.

Either you are with us

Or you are with the terrorists.

( applause )

Stone: For most americans, 9/11 was a terrible tragedy.

For george bush and dick cheney,

It was that plus more--

A chance to implement the agenda

That their neoconservative allies had been working up for decades.

The project for the new american century's

Recent report called "rebuilding america's defenses"

Had said "the process of transformation is likely to be a long one,

Absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event,

Like a new pearl harbor."

Al qaeda, in their mind,

Had given us pearl harbor.

And within minutes of the attack,

The bush team leapt into action.

With bush in florida,

Vice president cheney and his legal counsel

David addington,

Took charge, arguing that the president

As a wartime commander-in-chief

Could act virtually unfettered by legal constraints.

On September 12th,

Already looking past all qaeda's

Osama bin laden group in afghanistan,

Bush, back in washington, instructed counter-terrorism chief richard clark...

Bush's voice: See if saddam did this.

See if he's linked in any way.

"it was iraq, saddam.

Find out, get back to me."

And the reaction you got that day

From the defense secretary, donald rumsfeld,

From his assistant paul wolfowitz?

Well, donald rumsfeld said,

When we talked about bombing the al qaeda infrastructure in afghanistan,

He said there were "no good targets in afghanistan.

Let's bomb iraq."

And we said, "but iraq had nothing to do with this."

And that didn't seem to make much difference.

Stone: Donald rumsfeld had, already on September 11th,

Ordered strike plans for iraq.

"go massive," he said.

"sweep it all up, things related and not."

Within a matter of days, bush announced

Before a joint session of congress

That the United States was embarking on a global war.

From this day forward,

Any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism

Will be regarded by the United States

As a hostile regime.

Stone: At home, 1,200 men were quickly arrested and detained,

Another 8,000 sought for interrogation,

Mostly muslims.

Bush rushed a 362-page

U.S.A. Patriot act through congress.

Senators had no time to read the bill,

Let alone debate it.

Only senator russ feingold

Of wisconsin voted against it, insisting...

Feingold: Preserving our freedom

Is one of the main reasons that we are now engaged

In this new war on terrorism.

We will lose that war without firing a shot

If we sacrifice the liberties of the american people.

Stone: Bush cloaked white house deliberations

In an unprecedented veil of secrecy,

And in 2002, empowered the national security agency

To conduct warrantless wiretaps

And monitor u.S. Citizens' emails on a massive scale...

Eyes and ears in every room.

...In violation of legal reviews

Required by legislation passed in 1978

In reaction to intelligence abuses of the previous decades.

The administration barraged the public

With constant alerts, heightened security,

And a five-tier system of color-coded warnings.

The system was at times being politically manipulated

By rumsfeld and attorney general john ashcroft,

And in 2005, tom ridge,

Under pressure, felt compelled to resign.

Potential terror targets jumped from 160 sites in 2003

To over 300,000 in the next four years.

Amazingly, indiana led all states

With 8600 potential targets by 2006.

The national database included

Petting zoos, donut shops, popcorn stands,

Ice cream parlors and the mule day parade

In columbia, tennessee.

The unreality of the time continued to heighten.

At the start of world war ii, franklin roosevelt warned,

"war costs money--

That means taxes and bonds and bonds and taxes.

It means cutting luxuries and other nonessentials."

Bush instead cut taxes on the wealthy and told americans:

Fly and enjoy america's great destination spots.

Take your families and enjoy life.

Stone: Ironically, it was arch-cold warrior zbigniew brzezinski

Who in 2007 decried bush's...

Brzezinski's voice: Five years of almost continuous

National brainwashing.

Where is the u.S. Leader ready to say

"enough of this hysteria; stop this paranoia"?

Even in the face of future terrorist attacks,

The likelihood of which cannot be denied,

Let us show some sense.

Let us be true to our traditions.

Stone: Terrorism, he stressed repeatedly,

Was a tactic, not an ideology

And declaring war on a tactic

Made absolutely no sense.

We must stop the terror.

I call upon all nations to do everything they can

To stop these terrorist killers.

Thank you. Now watch this drive.

Stone: But the real weight of bush's global crusade

Would be felt abroad.

Less than a month after the terrorist attacks,

The u.S. Invaded afghanistan,

Ostensibly to destroy some of the same islamic fanatics

The u.S. Had helped arm and train to defeat the soviets

Two decades earlier.

Critics of the war would point out later

That no afghans were among the 19 9/11 hijackers,

15 of whom were saudi;

And that u.S. Bungling allowed osama bin laden

And other al qaeda leaders to escape into pakistan

In early December.

The c.I.A. Did round up thousands of suspects

In afghanistan and beyond.

Although the u.S. Had always considered

Its humane treatment of prisoners of war

A sign of its moral superiority,

The bush administration branded detainees as...

...Waived the battlefield hearings required,

And placed them outside the conventions of treatment

Mandated by the geneva convention of 1949.

When foreign governments criticized his position,

Bush backed down on the taliban suspects,

But refused to change his policy for the al qaeda fighters.

Bush said...

Bush's voice: I don't care what the international lawyers say,

We are going to kick some ass.

Stone: The u.S. Flew an unknown number of detainees

To secret "black sites" around the world

In such places as thailand, poland, romania, and morocco,

Where torture and other "harsh interrogation techniques"

Were implemented.

Hundreds of others were imprisoned at the u.S. Naval station

At guantanamo bay, cuba.

At its peak in may 2003,

The prison held roughly 680 men,

Age 13 to 98.

5% of these were captured by u.S. Troops.

More than 80% were turned over,

Often for cash rewards,

By a combination of afghan warlord militias

And both afghan and pakistani bounty hunters.

Government sources show that only 8% were al qaeda fighters.

600 have been released,

Six convicted, and according to the government,

Nine have died-- most from suicide.

As of 2012,

166 men from more than 20 countries

Remain in guantanamo.

The bush administration encouraged the c.I.A.

To employ 10 enhanced interrogation methods

That were the product of decades of research into torture,

Honed by allies in foreign countries.

In February 2004,

Major general antonio taguba reported that his investigation

Had turned up numerous instances of...

Taguba's voice: Sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses

...At abu ghraib prison in iraq.

Taguba's voice: There is no longer any doubt

As to whether the current administration

Has committed war crimes.

Stone: Arthur schlesinger, jr., a former kennedy aide,

Said this torture policy was the...

Schlesinger's voice: Most dramatic sustained and radical challenge

To the rule of law in american history.

No position taken has done more damage

To the american reputation in the world... Ever!

Stone: Although the security situation in afghanistan

Worsened over the next seven years,

And the u.S. Presence grew from 2500 to 30,000 troops,

Afghanistan was a distraction to bush.

His attention was focused on toppling

His father's old adversary-- saddam hussein.

Bush: Evidence from intelligence sources,

Secret communications and statements

By people now in custody,

Reveal that saddam hussein aids and protects terrorists...

Including members of al qaeda.

Stone: As had bill casey in the 1980s

And lyndon johnson in vietnam,

Bush used false intelligence.

Bush: There is no question that the leader of iraq

Is an evil man.

After all, he gassed his own people.

We know he's been developing

Weapons of mass destruction.

Stone: U.N. Inspectors searched high and low,

Visiting sites identified by the c.I.A.

They found nothing, but bush insisted

The w.M.D. Were there.

Bush: The british government has learned that saddam hussein

Recently sought significant quantities of uranium from africa.

Stone: Bush told bob woodward

Of "the washington post" around this time...

Bush's voice: I do not need to explain why I say things.

I don't feel like I owe anybody

Any explanations.

Stone: These were extraordinary times.

Words took on new meanings,

Fulfilling george orwell's prophecies of "doublespeak"

In his novel "1984"--

First they steal the words, then they steal the meaning.

Words like "axis of evil," "war against terror,"

"regime change," "simulated drowning,"

"preventive war."

Civilians killed were now "collateral damage."

C.I.A. Kidnappings

Were now "extraordinary renditions."

And that most patriotic concept, "the homeland,"

Grew into a gargantuan new federal agency

As labyrinthine as the pentagon.

The french philosopher voltaire in the 18th century observed,

"those who can make you believe absurdities

Can make you commit atrocities."

The descent into unreality was dizzying.

"black hawk down," another popular oscar-nominated film

Appeared in late 2001,

Glorifying american heroism and technology

In 1990's somalia.

Through technology, video games became more and more lifelike.

And on television

Increasingly bizarre and fanciful reality game shows

Prospered in the ratings.

Jenna, the tribe has spoken.

U.S. Media beat the drums of war.

M.S.N.B.C., which was owned by general electric,

Cancelled phil donahue's popular primetime show

Three weeks before the invasion.

Officials feared that the show...

And wave the flag they did.

C.N.N., fox, n.B.C. Paraded

Over 75 retired generals and officers,

Almost all of whom were later revealed

To be working directly for military contractors.

Pentagon officials gave them talking points,

Portraying iraq as an urgent threat.

Major newspapers and magazines,

Including "the new york times," advanced the same message.

One bush insider told journalist ron suskind

That suskind represented "the reality-based community,"

But "that's not the way the world works anymore.

We're an empire now,

And when we act, we create our own reality."

When France, germany and russia,

As well as most of the security council,

Refused to support the u.S. Position,

Bush was furious and rumsfeld sneered...

You're thinking of europe as germany and France.

I don't.

I think that's old europe.

Stone: French fries in the congressional cafeteria

Were renamed "freedom fries,"

Just as sauerkraut became "liberty cabbage" during world war I.

Bush laid out his new strategy

In a speech to the cadets at west point in June 2002.

We must take the battle to the enemy,

Disrupt its plans

And confront the worst threats

Before they emerge.

Stone: The u.S. Would act unilaterally and preemptively

To overthrow any government

Deemed a threat to u.S. Security.

Cheney had declared...

Cheney's voice: If there's a 1% chance pakistani scientists

Are helping al qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon,

We have to treat it as a certainty

In terms of our response.

In the world we have entered,

The only path to safety

Is the path of action.

And this nation will act.

Stone: 60 countries made it on to bush's potential hit list.

With bush calling for a moral crusade,

Saying that the United States must defend liberty and justice

Because these principles are right and true

For all people everywhere.

Moral truth is the same in every culture,

In every time and in every place.

Stone: It was a bold statement of american exceptionalism.

Bruce bartlett, who served

In both the reagan and first bush administrations explained...

Bartlett's voice: This is why george w. Bush is so clear-eyed

About al qaeda and the islamic fundamentalist enemy.

He understands them because he's just like them.

He truly believes he's on a mission from god.

The whole thing about faith is to believe things

For where there is no empirical evidence.

I have a sense of calm

Knowing that the bible's admonition,

"thy will be done,"

Is life's guide.

Stone: In early October of 2002,

Congress empowered bush to go to war

Against iraq on his own authority,

Whenever he deemed it appropriate,

Using whatever means,

Including nuclear weapons, he felt necessary.

The resolution drew a direct connection

Between iraq and al qaeda.

Among those authorizing this

Were senators john kerry and hillary clinton.

This would cost both of them dearly

In their runs for president.

Not all were fooled.

Escalating this war and expanding this war

Does nothing in terms of our national security.

It puts us more at risk.

Iraq was not a haven for terrorists as it is now.

Again, iraq, saddam hussein and al qaeda--

There was no connection and we have to dispel that notion

So the american people know the truth.

Stone: Millions of protesters hit the streets around the world--

Three million in rome,

A million in london,

Hundreds of thousands in new york.

"time" magazine surveyed several hundred thousand europeans.

84% thought the United States

The greatest threat to peace;

8% thought iraq was.

Bush sent secretary of state colin powell,

The most respected member of his administration,

Before the united nations to make a case for war.

He told powell...

Bush's voice: Maybe they'll believe you.

Saddam hussein is determined

To get his hands on a nuclear bomb.

Stone: Powell spoke for 75 minutes.

It was a thoroughly shameful performance,

Promoting false intelligence

That powell later called a low point in his career.

But the speech, although it fell flat overseas,

Had the desired impact on u.S. Public opinion.

Support for the war jumped from 50% to 63%.

"the washington post" pronounced the evidence on w.M.D. "irrefutable."

The u.S., without a security council resolution,

Was moving inexorably towards war.

The truth was even darker.

For bush, iraq was only the appetizer.

After devouring iraq, the neocons had their eyes set

On the main course.

Pentagon officials foresaw a 5-year campaign

With a total of seven targeted countries,

Beginning with iraq, syria, lebanon, libya,

Somalia, sudan and the biggest prize of all,

Iran.

It would be a war to remake the world

The neoconservative way.

Talk of empire abounded.

"the new york times" Sunday magazine cover

For January 5, 2003 read:

"american empire: Get used to it."

Bush clearly was a man with a boldness of vision.

He'd always exhibited an outlaw side as a younger man.

Now he would outdo his towering father

By going beyond the laws of nations.

The 8-year war became the debacle critics predicted.

Iraqi society was rent asunder.

Like vietnam, it warped america,

Polarizing it even further as costs and casualties

Mounted on all sides.

Yet remarkably, bush won the 2004 election

With a naked appeal to even more fervent patriotism.

By 2008, when bush left office

With the most dismal poll ratings since harry truman,

He had not only thoroughly mismanaged two wars...

As well as the federal relief efforts for new orleans

In the aftermath of hurricane katrina,

But most importantly, in the eyes of the public,

He mismanaged the economy of the country

Which nearly collapsed in 2008

And ensured the presidency to the democrats.

His successor, barack hussein obama,

Child of a black kenyan father

And a white kansas mother,

Who was raised in indonesia and hawaii,

Became at 47 president of the United States

Evoking great hopes for change.

His words and demeanor attested to the other side of america--

Constitutional, humanist, global, environmental.

Obama had spoken out strongly against the iraq war.

What I do oppose is a dumb war.

Stone: Financed by the internet's multitude of small contributors

Stunned the heavily favored and financed

Democratic party choice,

Hillary clinton in the primaries.

He now confronted an ex-military man,

Conservative john mccain in the national election.

The wind was at obama's back.

Perhaps not since roosevelt in the early 1930s

Was there such populist anger at wall street

And the unnecessary wars of empire.

But then an unexpected thing happened.

Obama betrayed his earlier promise,

And became the first candidate to run in a general election

To reject public financing

In favor of private financing without limits.

Mccain, who took the public option,

Was badly outspent two to one.

In this period, obama turned quietly to wall street funders

With deep pockets like j.P. Morgan, goldman sachs

And citigroup, as well as general electric

And other defense contractors, computer giants

And the pharmaceuticals industry.- Big pharma.-

Which reversed years of supporting republicans,

Giving obama three times as much as mccain.

Few of obama's supporters complained at the time.

His victory in the national election

Was applauded across the world--

A new america was here.

Though conservatives would absurdly decry obama as a socialist,

By far the biggest winner in the election

Turned out to be wall street.

Obama brought back the same economic team

That under clinton had done so much

To deregulate the economy.

"the new york times" referred to them as

"a constellation of rubinites,"

Acolytes of the most powerful treasury secretary in decades,

Robert rubin.

After nearly wrecking the world economy

With spectacular innovations in leveraging and speculation,

Several giant banks, insurance companies

And mortgage lenders, prophesying the collapse of the world's economy

If they went under-- they were in other words "too big to fail"--

Eagerly accepted a $700 billion bailout

On remarkably easy terms.

In addition, the federal reserve board

Cut the interest rate for banks to 0%.

It became almost unpatriotic at the time

To question the rightness of these financial rescues.

But there were those who wondered--

Could not some of the sicker financial entities

Be let go and broken up?

Could not these giants be confronted

With the real market value of their toxic assets?

The public wanted revenge.

It was a classic depression back room moment,

As illustrated by frank capra.

You sit there back of your big cigars

And think of deliberately killing an idea

That's made millions of people a little bit happier,

An idea that's brought thousands of them here

From all over the country

By bus and by freight and jalopies,

And on foot!

So they could pass onto each other

Their own simple little experiences.

Why look,

I'm just a mug and I know it.

But I'm beginning to understand a lot of things.

Why, your type's as old as history.

If you can't lay your dirty fingers

On a decent idea and twist it and squeeze it

And stuff it into your own pocket,

You slap it down! Like dogs,

If you can't eat something, you bury it!

Stone: Former federal reserve chairman, paul volcker,

Urged obama to act.

Volcker's voice: Right now, when you have your chance

And their breasts are bared,

You need to put a spear through the heart

Of all these guys on wall street

That for years have been mostly debt merchants.

Stone: But it didn't happen. The bailout was forced through

A panicked congress, the media applauded.

The treasury made no immediate demands

That bankers make that money available in new loans

To businesses or the public,

Or, for that matter, cut their personal compensations.

And made no demands that shareholders or bondholders

Absorb any losses.

Taxpayers would fund the bailout alone.

The biggest losers over time would be workers,

Pensioners, older people with savings,

Homeowners, small businessmen,

Students with loans, and those, especially african-americans,

Who lost their jobs to a surging,

Structural unemployment problem.

Many simply lost their tenuous grip

On the proverbial american dream

Of joining the middle class.

The myth of upward mobility was shattered.

The bankers, or "banksters" as they were nicknamed

During the great depression of the 1930s,

Had talked of voluntary restraint,

But received record compensation packages

For the next two years.

Whereas c.E.O.S in britain and canada

Earned 20 times as much as the average worker in 2010--

And in japan 11 times--

In the u.S., c.E.O.S made

343 times as much as the average worker.

The number of billionaires went from 13 in '85

To 450 in 2008.

While the minimum wage stagnated at $5.15 an hour

From '97 to '2007,

The poverty rate was higher than at any time

Since the 1960s.

The net worth of the average american family

Actually dropped almost 40%

From $126,000 in 2007

To $77,000 in 2010.

By 2011, the top 1%

Had more wealth than the bottom 90 percent.

Populist anger boiled over into the occupy wall street movement,

A kind of protest not seen since the 1930s.

The right-wing tea party expressed a different kind of anger

Fueled by advocacy groups like americans for prosperity,

Largely funded by the conservative, billionaire koch brothers.

The confused american public, not knowing who to blame

For persisting economic hardship,

Handed the republicans a sweeping victory

In 2010's mid-term elections,

But only more gridlock and confusion pervaded washington.

Obama, who'd swept to office amid such euphoria,

Now walked a fine line,

Avoiding fatal mistakes,

But failing to deliver on hope or change.

During the 2008 campaign,

The constitutional professor had promised

"transparency and the rule of law

Will be the touchstones of this presidency."

Yet, in office, he refused to relinquish the expanded powers

Usurped by the bush administration--

As a passive population continued to consent

To being stripped in front of airport screeners,

Permit eavesdropping on their communications

And pay for vast new security programs.

It did not make political sense for obama to ease

This heightened state of alert,

In the risk that a single terrorist incident

Would certainly result in renewed media hysteria

And a republican I-told-you-so firestorm

That could cost him his presidency.

Ever in the middle of all this coming at you,

You think maybe one term is enough?

The one thing I'm clear about

Is that I'd rather be

A really good one-term president

Than a mediocre two-term president.

Stone: Instead of fighting for transparency, however,

Obama became a far more effective manager

Of the national security state.

Like bush, he repeatedly invoked

The state secrets privilege in lawsuits

Involving torture, extraordinary rendition

And illegal n.S.A. Eavesdropping.

He blocked habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants,

Preserved military commissions and authorized, without due process,

The killing of a u.S. Citizen in yemen

Accused of having ties to al qaeda.

Obama stunned civil libertarians when he took

Bush-era investigations to the next level,

And began prosecuting government whistleblowers and reporters

Using the world war I era espionage act.

Only three cases had been brought in 92 years.

Obama initiated six cases of dubious merit--

Most defendants claiming to have exposed unlawful activity in the government.

Most prominent was bradley manning,

An army intelligence analyst in iraq,

Who leaked over 260,000 classified

Diplomatic cables and war reports,

As well as videos, distributed by wikileaks,

A non-profit whistleblower media organization.

These revelations of u.S. War crimes in iraq

And afghanistan, and u.S. Support

For dictatorial regimes in the region

Proved to be a significant catalyst

For the arab spring uprisings in egypt, tunisia,

Yemen, libya and bahrain.

Nonetheless, obama's administration has

Severely impaired the operation of wikileaks

And threatens to prosecute its co-founder.

These actions sent a clear message to all whistleblowers:

Commit war crimes like bush and cheney

And you walk free.

Expose them, and you risk careers

And huge fines.

Or, like manning, you rot in jail.

One of the leading defenders

Of the new standards of conduct, jack goldsmith,

Former head of the bush office of legal counsel,

Reassured cheney and other anxious neocons

In an article, saying that obama was...

Goldsmith's voice: ...Like nixon going to china.

The changes he had made are destined to fortify

The bulk of the bush program for the long run.

Stone: This was a new shadow world.

In 2010, "the washington post" called it

"an alternative geography of the United States,

A top-secret america

Hidden from public view."

Almost a million and a half people had top security clearances.

More than 3,000 government

And private security corporations existed.

1.7 billion e-mails and communications

Were intercepted and stored every day

By the national security agency.

Political commentator

And constitutional lawyer glen greenwald

Best described this truly radical change

In our world when he wrote,

"the core guarantee of western justice

Since the magna carta was codified in the u.S.

By the fifth amendment to the constitution..."

He might well have added the fourth amendment to the constitution...

Without due process and the right to privacy,

Each of us is essentially living at the mercy

Of the surveillance state.

All this in the name

Of stopping a terrorist threat

Blown wildly out of proportion.

Obama's foreign policy seemed more reasonable

Than bush's, repudiating the unilateralism

And preemption that had so outraged world opinion.

But the goal, embracing u.S. Global domination, differed little.

And even the means were frustratingly similar.

In 2011, bush's former n.S.A.

And c.I.A. Director, general michael hayden,

Took comfort in the powerful continuity

Between two vastly different presidents,

Saying that...

Hayden's voice: Americans have found a comfortable center line

In what it is they accept their government doing.

Stone: He called it a...

( hayden's voice )

Stone: His own experience in foreign affairs limited,

Obama surrounded himself with hawkish advisors.

Among them, bush holdover, secretary of defense robert gates,

A hard-liner from the bill casey c.I.A. Era of the '80s.

Hillary clinton, as secretary of state,

Was equally hawkish.

In an early speech, clinton presented

A version of american history steeped in

Unvarnished triumphalism and historical amnesia.

So let me say it clearly--

The United States can, must and will lead

In this new century.

The third world war

That so many feared never came.

And many millions of people were lifted out of poverty,

And exercised their human rights for the first time.

Those were the benefits of a global architecture

Forged over many years

By american leaders from both political parties.

Stone: It would be difficult to find and ask

The millions killed over many decades

Of american interference in their countries

What they thought.

The people of hiroshima and nagasaki,

The philippines, central america,

Greece,

Iran,

Brazil, cuba,

Congo,

Indonesia, vietnam,

Cambodia, laos,

Chile, east timor,

Iraq

And afghanistan,

Among others.

In afghanistan, obama,

Calling it "a war of necessity,"

Doubled down on bush.

Pressure in late 2009 into sending more troops,

He waivered.

He was told by a military advisor,

"I don't see how you can defy your military chain here,"

Meaning that his high command might resign in protest.

C.I.A. Director leon panetta told him,

"no democratic president can go against military advice,

Especially if he asks for it. So just do it,"

He recommended. "do what they say."

When it came down to his decision,

Obama did not show the courage of a john kennedy.

In December, he announced another 30,000 troop increase

To reach almost 100,000--

About the same number the soviets had deployed

In their disastrous invasion of afghanistan.

He announced the troop increase

At westpoint, reminding the cadets

That the u.S. Had invaded afghanistan

Because it had provided sanctuary for al qaeda.

But he neglected to mention that most of the preparation

For 9/11 took place not in afghanistan,

But in apartments in germany and Spain

And flight schools in the u.S.,

Or that only 50 to 100 of al qaeda's 300 cadre

Were actually

Left in afghanistan,

And that most were now in pakistan,

An ally.

That the president waging two wars

Would receive the nobel peace prize

That same month was surreal in the first place.

But when the world heard

Obama's defense

Of american unilateralism and preemption,

The meaning of the prize had been diminished,

As it had by kissinger 36 years earlier.

I believe the United States of america must remain

A standard bearer in the conduct of war.

That is what makes us different from those whom we fight.

Stone: Obama feared getting bogged down in afghanistan,

As johnson had in vietnam.

What the backward,

Dirt-poor, overwhelmingly

Illiterate afghans needed

Was economic aid, education and social reform.

The u.S. Spent

$110 billion on military programs

In 2011, but only $2 billion

For sustainable development.

With big u.S. Money

Floating around, as in vietnam,

Corruption reached epic proportions.

Mistrust between the supposed nato

And afghan allies soared.

The u.S.-Backed president hamid karzai

Announced that he would

Support pakistan if it should go to war

With the u.S.

By 2012, afghan soldiers and police

Were killing u.S. Troops with such increasing regularity

That the forces had to be increasingly separated.

Meanwhile, bedraggled, demoralized u.S. Forces

Left iraq in December 2011.

Almost 4500 u.S. Troops would not come home,

More than 32,000 wounded,

Many of them severely.

Iraqi death counts ranged from 150,000

To over a million.

Two million iraqis fled the country.

The irony was exquisite.

In deposing the sunni hussein, the United States had turned

The new shiite-dominated iraq

Into a valuable ally of iran,

Which ended up the war's biggest winner.

Bush officials had estimated the iraq war

To cost $50 to $60 billion.

Rumsfeld had called anything above 100 billion "baloney."

By 2008 when bush left office,

The u.S. Had spent some $700 billion on the war,

Not including long-term care for veterans.

Economists project total long-term costs

As high as 3 trillion.

Obama welcomed the troops home at fort bragg, north carolina,

Ensuring that the end of the war would be as dishonest as its beginning.

But we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant iraq.

Unlike the old empires,

We don't make these sacrifices

For territory or for resources.

We do it because it's right.

Never forget that you are part of an unbroken line

Of heroes spanning two centuries.

To your grandparents and parents

Who faced down fascism and communism

And delivered justice

To those who attacked us on 9/11.

Stone: Thus sanctioning, once again, bush's lie

About the connection of 9/11 to iraq.

The words were barely out of his mouth

Before iraq was racked with a new series

Of deadly suicide bombings.

To this day, iraq teeters on the edge of civil war.

Among the two wars' fiercest critics

Were the nation's mayors,

Who gathered in baltimore in June 2011

And called for using $126 billion in savings

From these wars to rebuild the nation's cities.

The mayor of los angeles was quoted as saying...

Villaraigosa's voice: That we would build bridges in baghdad and kandahar

And not baltimore and kansas city

Absolutely boggles the mind.

Stone: For the american people,

Deadened to these wars,

A single bright spot in this foreign miasma

Came in may 2011--

A bold cross-border raid

At night by navy seals

Killed osama bin laden,

Living comfortably in the shadow of pakistan's

Premier military academy.

In the euphoria

The raid created in the u.S.,

Celebrating the skill and power of the seals

Who had executed bin laden vigilante-style

And dumped his body at sea,

A new profile was created for obama,

As unlike bush, an effective war president

Who would, by any means necessary,

Hunt down the enemy.

In fact, really a wolf in sheep's clothing.

After a firefight, they killed osama bin laden

And took custody of his body.

Stone: A celebrated movie even implied

Torture as effective

In finding bin laden.

Though, in fact, it had been ordinary police

And espionage work that located him

After almost 10 years.

For god and country,

Geronimo is k.I.A.

- ( chuckles ) - man: Oh my god.

Stone: Nonetheless, america's capacity for self-love

Was again in full flower.

And there were no troubling discussions of bringing

A wounded bin laden back

For imprisonment and trial,

As the United States had done at nuremberg,

Where the nazi defendants were unmasked and diminished.

But a trial was the last thing most americans wanted.

Those who accepted torture

Could tolerate vigilante justice.

But who was the real victor here?

After estimated trillions of dollars spent in two wars,

Hundreds of thousands of dead worldwide,

An endless war on terror,

The loss of civil liberties and confidence

In one presidency

And the near-collapse of the empire's financial structure along with it,

It can be said by a neutral observer

That at the least the u.S. Had won

A pyrrhic victory in which its losses

Had made victory pointless.

Bin laden, with his twisted vision

Of a new caliphate, was dead,

But had achieved far more than he ever dreamed.

He goaded the largest, most powerful empire in history

To reveal its worst nature.

And like the wizard of oz,

It didn't look so great and mighty.

Who are you?

Oh, I-- I-- I am the great and powerful...

( meekly ) wizard of oz.

Stone: Bin laden's martyrdom

In the eyes of his followers,

Cemented his place in the history books

As a catalyst who weakened and perhaps

Helped destroy the old world order.

Some might call him

The hannibal or attila of roman myth,

A robespierre to the old french order,

Lenin to czarist russia,

Even a modern hitler to the british empire,

Which came to its end in his wake.

Bin laden was gone.

But what would the United States do now?

Still tormented

By its demons, it turned its gaze

Fully to china as a new threat

And persisted in treating russia

As an old one, as well as maintaining iran,

North korea and venezuela as regional threats.

Seeking to find a more efficient,

Leaner form of warfare, obama in 2012 announced...

First used for surveillance in vietnam, the drone,

When equipped with missiles, was now becoming

The modern face of warfare

And obama's weapon of choice.

He personally began selecting those on the kill list.

Prior to 9/11, the united states had opposed

Extra-judicial targeted killing by other nations,

Condemning israel's targeting of palestinians.

But by 2012, the air force and c.I.A. Were deploying

A 7,000 drone armada,

Used mostly in afghanistan, iraq and pakistan.

Obama expanded its usage

To yemen in 2009,

Where there were fewer than 300 militants.

By mid-2012, that number had increased

To over 1,000, as a steady barrage

Of u.S. Drone attacks

Outraged yemeni citizens.

By 2012, obama added

Gaddafi's libyan supporters, islamic rebels

In the philippines

And somalia to the drone list.

The repercussions of this style of warfare

Are yet to be experienced.

The number of civilian casualties of these attacks

Are fiercely contested by the u.S. Government

And several human rights organizations.

When the judge asked the pakistani-born "time square bomber"

How he could risk killing innocent women and children,

He replied that u.S. Drones were regularly

Killing women and children in afghanistan

And pakistan.

The cat was certainly out of the bag.

And by 2012,

More than 50 countries, some friendly

And some hostile to the u.S.,

Had purchased drones.

Israel, russia, india and iran claimed

To have mastered manufacturing lethal ones.

But the most dynamic program was china's.

As with the nuclear bomb, a new arms race was on.

Bush had continued

Clinton's expansion of nato bases closer to russia,

Breaking his father's promise to gorbachev.

Obama expanded nato to albania an croatia.

And despite abandoning 500 bases in iraq,

The obama administration, in addition to an estimated

6,000 bases in the u.S., is maintaining

Close to 1,000 overseas bases

That span the globe.

The u.S. Had, by late 2007,

Gained a military presence,

According to stanford's chalmers johnson,

In 151 of 192 u.N. Member nations.

In 2008, africom, based in germany,

Was added as a sixth command responsible

For growing u.S. Military presence in africa.

Southcom, based in miami,

Was reorganized in 2010

To increase u.S. Military presence in latin america

With bases and surveillance systems,

Counter-drug and counter-insurgency programs targeting...

"...As seen in venezuela."

The fourth fleet was reactivated in 2008

For the first time since world war ii.

The navy now has 10 carrier strike groups

Patrolling international waters.

Announcer: America's navy,

A global force for good.

Stone: In 2011, the u.S. Sold an astonishing

78% of the world's arms.

During the bush years,

Pentagon spending more than doubled

To 700 billion dollars.

Although the real pentagon budget

Blurs into secret functions

And different departments of government,

By 2010, according to the national priorities project,

The u.S. Actually spends an estimated...

...On military,

Intelligence and homeland security--

A full spectrum dominance of land, sea, air,

Space and cyberspace.

In November 2011,

Secretary of state clinton

Threw down the gauntlet on china, writing...

Calling this...

She meant a substantially increased military involvement

In the asia/pacific region to contain china.

Beginning with the opium wars in the 19th century,

China has been humiliated time and again by stronger foes--

Britain, japan, russia.

It fought the u.S. To a standoff

In korea in the early 1950s.

China is a proud nation--

The world's second-largest economy.

A hybrid-- part state-owned,

Part-capitalist-- it has replaced the u.S.

As asia's main trading partner.

But in 1996, chinese leaders were humiliated again

By u.S. Nuclear missile-rattling

During another confrontation over taiwan.

And with its economic interests

And shipping lanes to protect,

It set out to modernize its military.

In 2012, the pentagon estimated

Chinese expenditures of $160 billion.

But given the secrecy of the chinese system,

The real budget is unknowable at this time.

Although it has only one foreign base,

Its hard line over disputed oil, gas

And mineral-rich islands

And territories in the east and south china seas

Have escalated tensions

With its regional neighbors.

Internally, the government,

Communist in name only,

Remains politically backward--

Determined at any cost

To modernize,

And brutally willing

To stifle dissent where its one-party rule

Has been questioned.

Western democracies,

While doing business with china,

Have condemned these policies

To little avail. But more ominously,

China has again attracted

The wrath of china-bashing

American hard-liners

Whose animosity dates back

To the mccarthy era.

A new face-off is in the works.

The u.S. Has returned to asia,

Seeking new alliances,

Re-balancing its fleet,

Deploying its top stealth war planes

To bases within striking distance

Of china by 2017.

It has strengthened military alliances

With china's neighbors,

Particularly japan, south korea,

Taiwan, and the philippines,

Sending 2500 marines to australia--

The first long-term troop increase in asia

Since vietnam.

The chinese were deeply angry

Over the obama administration's

New arms sales of some

$12 billion to taiwan in 2010 and '11.

They have accused the u.S.

Of seeking to encircle them.

The fear of the u.S.

By others cannot be underestimated.

As the late conservative political scientist

Samuel huntington acknowledged in 1996,

Huntington's voice: The west won the war not by the superiority

Of its ideas, values or religion,

But rather by its superiority

In the application of organized viole

Westerners often forget this fact.

Non-westerners never do.

Stone: Progressive china experts

Fear the u.S. Is once again employing

Truman's 1946 playbook with the soviet union

In an attempt to contain china.

The same situation exists once again

With western revulsion for china's internal policies.

But this time, holding $1 trillion in u.S. Treasury bonds,

The chinese could imperil the u.S. Economy

In ways the soviets never could.

Historian alfred mccoy delineated the real stakes

When he wrote, "as early as 2020, the pentagon hopes

To patrol the entire globe ceaselessly,

Relentlessly, via a triple canopy space shield

Reaching from stratosphere to exosphere,

Driven by drones armed with agile missiles."

The triple canopy should be able to blind an entire army

By knocking out ground communications,

Avionics and naval navigation.

But as mccoy cautions, the illusion of technological invincibility

And information omniscience has failed arrogant nations in the past,

As the fate of germany in world war ii

And the u.S. In vietnam attest.

With tragic irony, mccoy reminds us

That the u.S.'s "veto of global lethality"

Might be an equalizer for any further loss

Of economic strength,

And that the u.S.'s "fate might well be determined

By which comes first in this century-long cycle:

Military debacle from the illusion of technological mastery,

Or a new technological regime

Powerful enough to perpetuate u.S. Global dominion."

But as a popular series

Of "star wars" movies shows,

A nation dominating the world with its technology

Will soon become a tyranny...

Rise, my friend.

...That will be hated by those who are tyrannized.

China may become the first new empire

To emerge in this nuclear-armed world,

But an empire modeled on the u.S.

Or british versions would be a disaster.

The great han chauvinism

Would be no better than american exceptionalism.

Former defense official joseph nye observed that

The dominant powers' failure to integrate

The rising powers of germany and japan

Into the 20th-century global system

Resulted in two catastrophic world wars.

History must not be allowed to repeat itself again.

The chinese must shun the american example

And the u.S. Must reverse course.

Henry wallace worried that if

The u.S. Treated the soviets so badly

When the u.S. Was riding high economically and militarily,

How would the soviets treat the u.S.

When and if the situation was reversed?

It never happened,

But this race to the bottom, he understood,

Would have no winner.

As we close out this series

We must ask ourselves humbly,

"in looking back at the american century,

Have we acted wisely and humanely in our relations

To the rest of the world?

A world in which the richest few hundred or thousand

Or couple thousand have more wealth

Than the poorest three billion?

Have we been right to police the globe?

Have we been a force for good, for understanding, for peace?"

We must look in the mirror.

Have we, perhaps in our self-love,

Become the angels of our own despair?

The claims of victory in the second world war

And justification for the atomic bomb dropped on japan,

Though aimed at the soviet union,

Were the founding myths of our domination

And national security state.

And the nation's elites have benefitted from that.

The bomb has allowed us to win by any means necessary,

Which makes us-- because we win-- right.

And because we are right, we are therefore good.

Under these conditions

There is no morality but our own.

As secretary of state madeleine albright said,

"but if we have to use force,

It is because we are america;

We are the indispensable nation."

Because we can and have threatened humanity with the bomb,

Our mistakes are forgiven

And our cruelties justified

As benignly-motivated aberrations.

But domination doesn't last.

Five major empires have collapsed

In the lifetime of a person born before world war ii:

Britain, France, germany,

Japan and the soviet union.

Three more empires earlier in the 20th century:

The russian, austro-hungarian

And ottoman.

If history is a barometer,

The United States' domination will end as well.

We wisely resisted

Becoming a colonial empire

And most americans would deny all imperial pretensions.

Perhaps that is why we cling so doggedly to the myth

Of american exceptionalism--

American uniqueness, benevolence, generosity.

Maybe in that fanciful notion

Lies the seeds of american redemption,

The hope that the United States will live up to that vision

Which seemed within grasp in 1944

When wallace almost became president

Or 1953 when stalin died

With a new u.S. President in office,

Or j.F.K. And khrushchev in 1963,

Or bush and gorbachev in '89,

Or obama in 2008.

History has shown us

The curve of the ball could have broken differently.

These moments will come again in a different form.

Will we be ready?

I think back to franklin roosevelt

On the last day of his life cabling churchill...

Roosevelt's voice: I would minimize the soviet problem

As much as possible, because these problems,

In one form or another, seem to arise every day

And most of them straighten out.

Stone: Calming down

The situations that occur,

Letting things happen

Without overreacting,

Seeing the world through the eyes of our adversaries:

This way lies in sharing in the needs of other countries

With true empathy and compassion,

Trusting a collective will of this planet

To survive the coming period,

Ending the threats of nuclear annihilation and global warming.

Can we not surrender our exceptionalism

And our arrogance?

Can we not cut out the talk of domination?

Can we stop appealing to god to bless america over other nations?

Hard-liners and nationalists will object,

But theirs has proven not to be the way.

A young woman said to me in the 1970s,

"we need to feminize this planet."

I thought it strange then,

But now I realize there's power in love--

Real power in real love.

Let us find a way back to respect the law--

Not of the jungle, but the law of civilization--

By which we first came together and put aside our differences

To preserve the things that matter.

Herodotus wrote in the fifth century before christ,

"the first history was written in the hope

Of preserving from decay

The remembrance of what men have been."

And for that reason the history of man

Is not only one of blood and death,

But one also of honor, achievement,

Kindness, memory

And civilization.

There is a way forward--

By remembering the past.

And then we can start,

Step by step like a baby,

Reaching for the stars.

J.F.K.: For in the final analysis,

Our most basic common link

Is that we all inhabit this small planet,

We all breathe the same air,

We all cherish our children's futures,

And we are all mortal.

( theme music playing )