She's desperate for another bestseller, and she'll go to any length to get it, even if it means sacrificing her pride to chase the hottest bachelor in town and get him to break her heart.
From New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Probst, discover Book of the Month.Once the literary world's golden girl, Aspen Lord can't seem to produce another successful book, and the pressure's on to prove she's not just a one-hit wonder.
But there's a catch. Her bestseller was a heartbreak hit, straight from her own love life disaster.Without any fresh romantic turmoil to fuel her pen, Aspen needs inspiration quick enough to create a book her agent can sell to her publisher.
Book of the Month isn't just about finding love where you least expect it.It's about finding yourself in the pages of life's unexpected chapters.
And the author, Jennifer Probst, is the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of over 50 books in contemporary romance fiction.
Book of the Month can be read as a standalone book and is available in ebook, print, and audiobook.
Being a marketer's no sweat.You just have to manage dozens of channels, launch hundreds of campaigns, score thousands of leads, and... Okay, fine.It's a lot of sweat.
Unless you have HubSpot's AI-powered marketing tools to help you do all that and more.Get started at hubspot.com slash marketers.
Hey, curious people, I'm Jonathan Van Ness, and welcome back to Getting Curious.We have back today Dr. Osama Khalil.
If you have not gotten to listen to our first two episodes with him, Dr. Khalil, and he's going to talk about his book in the beginning of this episode, and we've talked about it, but just to give you a crash course, it summarizes the foreign policy and domestic policy from the Kennedy administration to the Biden administration.
There's a lot there.Let's try to learn together. So let's learn together.We're going to go back into it.We're going back with Dr. Osama Khalil now for part three of Why Does Our Foreign Policy Suck So Bad?
And if you need a refresher, Dr. Osama Khalil is a historian of U.S.foreign relations and chair of the International Relations Program at Syracuse University.
He's a frequent media commentator and contributor for outlets like the Los Angeles Times, NPR, USA Today, PBS NewsHour, The Hill, and Al Jazeera.His new book, A World of Enemies, America's Wars at Home and Abroad from Kennedy to Biden is out now.
I don't know if there was ever a guest who we meant to have on once and then came on three times and I never want you to leave.
We were joking listeners that like, I was like, can, can it be getting curious with Jonathan Van Ness and Dr. Osama Khalil because I've just, I've loved having you on.
I, you really are one of my most, I think I, you have been one of our most, like, I had just gotten so much richness of knowledge from getting to learn from you.And I'm so grateful for your book.And also you guys, We haven't gotten to talk.
I think I went into like a soliloquy about how much I love your book prior to this, but I think I'm going to get it in, in our intro.
But just in case we haven't, Dr. Khalil, will you, will you just tell us about the title of your book and why you are like the most perfect person to guide us from 1940s to now when it comes to understanding international policy and domestic policy?
Well, it's really sweet of you to say, Jonathan, and I can't thank you enough.I've loved being on and talking to you about it. So the book, A World of Enemies, really traces this intersection between America's domestic politics and domestic wars.
So the wars at home on war, crime, and terror, and then the wars that's launched overseas over those same issues.
And so it traces it really from Kennedy, and even a little bit of a precursor to Kennedy with Dwight D. Eisenhower, to the present day with President Biden.And so one of the things I want readers to take away from is
Many of the issues we're grappling with today are not new, and they're deeply rooted historically.We can trace them back to Kennedy.
In some cases, we can trace them, as you and I talked about in the first episode, back to the end of the Second World War, maybe even before in some cases.But what I hope the readers take away from that is we tend to think about
Domestic politics is one thing and foreign policy is another.And what I try and show is that there are a lot of intersections in between.
And not only do they influence each other, but domestic politics and domestic policy has been exported overseas in foreign policy.And foreign policy has come home with the wars at home, the war on terror, the war on drugs, the war on crime.
So we've seen all of these intersections over six to seven decades.
And you're a literal historian.You're a doctor of history.
So I mean, you are, your whole adult life has been in academia and like leading up to like, I mean, I just think, and also it's like the time because you started writing this book before October 7th, I would think.Right.
Uh, I start, you know, I started doing this book, uh, thinking about this book, uh, you know, almost three decades ago, but I started writing about it.Um,
you know, in earnest in 2019 and then, uh, you know, finished it up the, you know, kind of the first draft late 2021.Um, and then, you know, been tweaking it since, but yeah.
Um, so, but just, you know, October 7th came out, uh, occurred and we were in, uh, advanced prints at that point.So, you know, trying to tweak the book that I need to tweak it.And I thought it stood well enough on its own in the arguments.In fact,
You know, unfortunately, so much of what's happened since October 7th just confirms a number of the arguments in the book about how U.S.
foreign policy has been militarized, how we don't deal with diplomacy, how we've ignored certain conflicts, or we've actually allowed them not only to fester, but we've made them more difficult to solve.
And I think October 7th brought that to a head and everything since.So, I mean, I think, not to make this like
Actually, I will not make this about me.I'm such a fucking good journalist, I can't stand it.Okay, so where we left off was, I think we got up to September 11th, 2001.
People that were of like teenage adult age in 2001, like if you're old enough to remember where you were in 2001, and you were like in junior high or high school or older, there was like significant
The media onslaught and the media coverage and the way that we like, I mean, we watched it at school like that entire day and the next day and the day after that.I mean, it was a huge event for the United States.
September 11th was I think over 3,000 people were killed in this terrorist attack.And you know, but even when I say terrorist, not to like, and it was a terrorist attack, but years and years ago, I think it was 2018.
We did an episode of getting curious where that was the first time where I learned that like, you know, when there's something like September 11th, it's a terrorist attack.But then when there's something like
Timothy McVeigh that's like lone wolf or just it's like who gets labeled as a terrorist and who gets labeled as like a non-threat and so just the way that like the press and the government will Certain people get labeled a certain thing and other people get labeled a certain thing and there's a lot of racism in that so I buy that I believe in I believe that but so September 11th is this a gigantic terrorist attack which causes like a
the second Gulf War, like it caused like this, like Iraq number two, which we covered the first Gulf War in our second episode.But can you tell us like, what was the fallout from September 11th for the United States foreign policy?
Sure.That's a great question.So, just to kind of bring your readers up to speed, so, you know, George Bush has only been in office for, you know, less than nine months.And it was a very contested election.We talked a little bit about this last time.
And, you know, there's good evidence that, you know, Bush actually didn't win the election.Had the Supreme Court not intervened, stopped the recount, Al Gore would have been president.
Um over the next, you know, nine months quite frankly The middle east is and in particular the israeli palestinian peace process is falling apart And that's one area that bush is focused on terrorism is not terrorism per se broadly speaking Is not a real area of focus and this is going to be one of the points of criticism of president bush and the bush administration Because he's being warned
by the head of the CIA, George Tenet, by his counterterrorism czar, Richard Clark, We're getting signals that something is coming, right?So we talked a little about this in the second episode.
There had been the attack on the coal in September 2000, so just before the election, which the U.S.
believes al-Qaeda, as we often call it, it's called al-Qaeda is the more correct pronunciation in Arabic, but al-Qaeda is the pronunciation your audience might be more familiar with, that they and bin Laden are involved in the coal attack.
So Clark and Tennant are attempting, you know, through the spring, and especially in the summer, to get Bush's attention, and it's not working, to do something on, and the way they're describing it is, we're getting signals that something is coming.
And they couldn't get Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, or the President to really kind of take this seriously.
Rice will kind of dismiss the claims and say, we're working on a counterterrorism policy, or a terrorism policy, and it's going to launch in September. Now, let me also throw this caveat out.
There's still a lot that we're learning about what the CIA was monitoring through the summer because the team, the al-Qaeda team that is responsible hijackers are inside the U.S.And the CIA is tracking two of them.
And we know Saudi intelligence is somehow involved, but a lot of this are lessons where some of this evidence we're still learning about.So why were they, you know, were they tracking these guys?We know they were.How much did they know about them?
What were they trying to learn?And so this is going to be one of the points in, for example, the 9-11 commission is going to look at and say, why didn't you do more?
Why didn't you, the CIA, inform the FBI that you were monitoring, you know, these individuals? And what the CIA will claim at the time is, well, we didn't tell them because effectively we wanted to map this network.Who were they talking to?
Who were they getting money from?And if we tell the FBI, the FBI is going to go arrest these guys and then we're not going to be able to figure out what's going on. So nevertheless, the U.S.
does not, and the Bush administration does not stop or arrest these individuals.They fall off the radar.
And Dr. Clay, let me just say something really quick, really quick, because we went over this like last time, but I just want to, so FBI is, the FBI is like, once like foreign, what's the difference between the FBI and the CIA again?
I feel like you told us this in episode one.
Sure, that's a great question, that's a great question. So, FBI is supposed to be a law enforcement, domestic law enforcement, okay?But they do have an intelligence and counterterrorism division that coordinates with the CIA on issues like this.
CIA is only supposed to focus overseas and it's supposed to be intelligence. and intelligence gathering, but also, quote unquote, operations, in other words, covert operations overseas.
So there is like some liaising, but like overall, FBI is domestic, CIA is foreign, and they do liaise in like some departments, but like generally.
Exactly.So and in fact, you know, one of the things that's exposed by 9-11 is You know, the liaison committee, especially on counterterrorism, doesn't work well together.
So, you know, what happens is you come into a meeting, you're basically assigned to this committee when your career is over.Like, that's how you know your career is over.We're going to put you on this committee.
And you go into this meeting, and the CIA says, oh, well, what are you working on?And you go, you know, I don't know.What are you working on? and nobody wants to share information.So this is all pre-911.
So it's one of the big things that was exposed was how little these organizations were talking to each other and how much overlap there had been, but that redundancy didn't help with analysis, it didn't help with actual operations.
Now we're told that's improved in the past 20 plus years, right?You know, CIA will say it's improved, FBI will say it's improved, perhaps. Uh, nevertheless, so on 9-11, uh, they're not communicating well.
And then it, you know, obviously the attack happens, um, and it's traumatic.It's obviously traumatic for everyone.As you can imagine, you know, you, uh, as you talked about, whether you were in, in high school or grade school or daycare, you know,
especially the terrible imagery that's coming across.And very quickly, the Bush administration settles on, and this was a question you had last time, very quickly the Bush administration settles on that this has been Laden, okay?
This has been Laden, this was al-Qaeda, and now the question is, what do you do?And so within three days, roughly, after 9-11,
President Bush is going to convene his top national security team out at Camp David, the presidential retreat at Camp David.And we're going to see a split emerge in the administration.
So Colin Powell, on the one side as Secretary of State, is going to argue that the United States can pull a coalition together to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, who's the government at that point, which the U.S.
does not have a relationship with but have been in negotiations with over several different things, including the surrender of Bin Laden pre-911.
On the other side, you have Vice President Cheney, Dick Cheney, you have the neoconservative wing of the Bush administration.Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld, and Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
And they're arguing the following.This couldn't have happened without state support, and that state is not Afghanistan.The state that was behind this is Iraq.
Now, there's going to be really tense exchanges between, for example, from what we know about this meeting, between Colin Powell and Don Rumsfeld.And that split's going to just get worse over the next three years, right?
But what Powell is going to say effectively is, you know, we have no evidence on Iraq.We have no evidence that Iraq was involved.We have really good evidence that bin Laden and al-Qaeda was involved.
Um, and we know that he has a safe harbor quote-unquote.
That's the term they'll use in afghanistan The taliban's been protecting him and we can get a coalition together to go after afghanistan What we also know is that even though they don't the neocons don't win that argument at camp david That bush is already thinking about iraq Some would argue You know, we have some evidence that he was thinking about
you know, formulating a policy on Iraq and a new invasion of Iraq well before 9-11, you know, when he came into office.But clearly right after that meeting, he's going to do a few things.
He's going to agree at the meeting, he will say, we're going to go with Afghanistan first. And Colin Powell will later recount that the way he took that is, we're going to go with Afghanistan first, and then we're going to Iraq.
And what he will do, almost exactly the time, so you may also remember this, members of your audience remember this, is he's going to give the very public speech to Congress, in which he lays out- About the weapons of mass destruction?
No, that's later.This is the, you're with us or you're with the terrorists.
Oh, very binary.Very binary.
Yeah, yeah. So within roughly a month after 9-11, the United States invades Afghanistan and is not successful in capturing Bin Laden, right?It is successful in overthrowing the Taliban.
But it's not successful in capturing bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri, who's an Egyptian physician.And they do kill or capture some key figures in al-Qaeda, but not bin Laden and Zawahiri.
And where bin Laden and Zawahiri go at that point is anybody's guess. You know, we later find out they're in Pakistan, but there's all kinds of rumors that will then occur over the next 10 years.Where is he?Becomes like a Where's Waldo situation.
Is he hiding somewhere in the borderlands?You'll hear all kinds of leaks in the press.We think he's here.
I remember the NBC Nightly News.I remember them being like, these caves are really hard.The terrain in Afghanistan, it's really hard because they could just go here.And I remember, I think it was Tom Brokaw.
Or it was Brian Williams, but it was definitely one of them.And I remember, like, seeing this on the nightly news, and I was like, wow, they're just not gonna get him.That's just, you know, you think they could, but they just couldn't.
Like, that was like a whole thing.
One, if you recall, so this is going to play a role, as we talked about domestic politics, it's going to play a role in the 2004 campaign.
But so if you recall, you know, Bin Laden, the story that had been told to the press was that Bin Laden had been holed up in this mountain, quote unquote, mountain stronghold of Torah Bor, okay?
This had been a base for the anti-Soviet insurgency in the 80s, right?The Mujahideen, the holy warriors that the US, the CIA, and Pakistan had been funding to fight against the Soviet Union.
And then he was back at this base with, you know, dedicated followers, and he was going to fight to the death.
The United States had, you know, in the initial aftermath of 9-11, had a lot of international support, even in quarters that were not expected.So, for example, Iran.Iran, which had very little, quite frankly, opposed to al-Qaeda, both ideologically,
religiously, but had, you know, nothing in common with Al-Qaeda and, you know, wanted to see them captured and overthrown, right?They're providing information to the United States.
Other groups who the United States had been at odds with, like Hezbollah, for example, we can talk a little more about them, were also trying to distance themselves from the 9-11 attacks.And then you had kind of a broader appeal.
Everybody, you know, from Putin in Russia to Western European allies were all backing the U.S.
Last fall, I was all about eyes.This fall, I'm all about blush.But I don't want my eyes getting jealous, and that's why the Liquid Lash Extensions mascara is the perfect complement to my fall look.
I love a lengthening mascara, and this one is not giving me any smudging, no flaking, no clumping.It's stunning.It gives me the look of lash extensions without the lash extensions.
It's a flake-free tubing formula that dramatically lengthens and defines your lashes from root to tip.It's going perfect with my pumpkin spice latte facial vibes, honey.I love it.I just really want what works, but I also love two things at once.
So brighten up your fall look with Thrive Cosmetics.Luxury beauty that gives back. Right now, you can get an exclusive 20% off your first order at thrivecosmetics.com slash curious.
That's thrivecosmetics, C-A-U-S-E M-E-T-I-C-S dot com slash curious for 20% off your first order.
What if you could become stronger, more resilient, cure disease, and all you have to do is get naked in the cold and breathe?
You get into ice water, and instead of freaking out, you relax.
It's called the Wim Hof Method, and Gwyneth Paltrow and Justin Bieber love it.
I do the ice plunge because it's good for your body.
But there's also a dark side.
How many people have died doing the Wim Hof Method?We can override even death.
Listen on the podcast Infamous.That's Infamous, playing now.
Just to recap really quickly.So what you're saying is, is that like you had a split in the Bush administration between Colin Powell on one side that was like, Al Qaeda is good for this.I don't know about all this Iraq stuff.
But then you had Donald Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and they were like, no, no, no. It's like, we need to do Iraq, like this is our opportunity to like, for whatever reason.
So then I remember like, France was like, no, Putin was like, because did Russia support that?Or you were just saying, what did Russia think about that?
So right now, I think the important thing to remember is, you know, the period we're talking about is like three days after 9-11.And right now the focus is on who did this and is it in Afghanistan, right?
And the belief that it's bin Laden in Afghanistan.
But there's already like a secret thing for like Iraq, like was that the three days later?
That's unfolding, yeah.That's unfolding secretly over the next, you know, in just the initial days after 9-11 and the first two weeks after 9-11, right?And planning will be initiated at Central Command within two weeks after 9-11, right?
But that's all secret.The other thing that the Bush administration is going to do is this, is that they will, they will create a national security policy related to terrorism.And so this is where, and it takes back to how, you know, you framed it.
What do we do, how do we define terrorism and how do we define global terrorism?So what the United States, what the Bush administration is going to say is,
The war on terror is against all organizations with global terrorists who have the ability to conduct terrorism operations globally.Okay?So it's not just focused on Al-Qaeda.It's not just focused on bin Laden.
Instead, what they're going to do is initiate this policy that lumps in a bunch of groups together.So of course there will be Al-Qaeda and bin Laden, but also
Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic resistance movement, Hezbollah, Lebanon's party of God, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and one or two other groups.
So a bunch of groups that they're now piling together and saying, these are all terrorist organizations with global capabilities.And the United States, and they're all bundled under this policy, this new counterterrorism policy.
in which the United States will either directly or working with partners and allies indirectly target these organizations.So that's pretty much not known to the American public, right?
Um where it will become evidenced over that that you know, the 2001 from if you want to say september mid-september 2001 Into september 2002 and 2003 Is the following?
You're going to have domestic law cases where the united states will say, okay We don't really have a lot of al-qaeda operatives al-qaeda and I think that's the important thing for your audience.Remember?They're very small right?
Bin Laden has maybe 200, maybe 300 at most fighters.I mean, if you think about like, you know, the Al Qaeda birthday party, right?With the bouncy house, everybody comes together to have the cake.There's going to be about 300 people there.
That's it, right?And then they have a couple of supporters in and around the Persian Gulf.Almost all of them are based in Afghanistan and Pakistan.It's very small.He doesn't have a ton of support.
But what the Bush administration will try and do is say, OK, there is this much broader network of terrorist organizations with global reach that are in the 60,000, 70,000, 100,000 terrorists around the world.And that's who we're fighting against.
So they want to make this as big of a target as possible.And it's still really shadowy and really unclear. But that also helps, from a public relations perspective, how do you sell this at home?How do you sell the war on terror at home?
It's very simple.You're running that video, as you talked about, of the planes hitting the towers, of the Pentagon on fire, the plane that went down in Pennsylvania.This is who we're fighting against.
So that, the US will get support from France and Germany, And and russia will not have an issue with countering al-qaeda and terrorism.
That's not their that's not now they will Dispute for example Is hezbollah a terrorist organization is hamas a terrorist organization, right?You know, can we can we differentiate these?
But those are you know behind the scenes discussions not necessarily out in the open sphere Okay
What will happen is, by President Bush's first State of the Union address, so here we are in January 2002, where he announces, this was the question, now here's the axis of evil.And this is where- Oh, the axis of evil.Yeah, yeah.
So this is where- I remember this.Right, on public display, who is the axis of evil?It's Iraq?
North korea and iran and then there are junior members, you know key members in the administration will come and talk about junior members of the acts of evil But what the acts of evil speech does is is a couple of things.
So domestically It starts to bring up some of those secret conversations that rumsfeld and cheney what they've been pushing behind the scenes That we have to focus on iraq.And in fact, you know, one of the things we know about
They're they're pushing for iraq in in the discussions at camp.David was the following Rumsfeld will actually say, you know, there's a public relations aspect to this that we have to think about There are no good quality targets as hell.
He'll put in afghanistan but If Baghdad falls, right, that's a quality target.That's something we can show the rest of the world that we mean business in the war on terror, right?
Afghanistan doesn't, as he'll talk about over and over again, doesn't have these quality targets.So the acts on evil speech is part of this kind of setting the stage now domestically that the target has shifted.
We overthrew the Taliban in Afghanistan.We haven't caught bin Laden, but that's just a matter of time, right?We will catch him eventually. And now we're talking about reshaping the region.
So when you start to talk about Iraq, Iran, and then North Korea as part of the acts of evil, you're setting the stage for what's to come.
Now, what we also know is behind the scenes, this also matches a policy memorandum that Rumsfeld has written, which is to say, what is our strategy in the war on terror?Our strategy in the war on terror is to overthrow two or three states
in and around the region, Afghanistan.
Which is regime change.We talked about regime change in the Reagan administration with what we were meddling in.Yes, it always comes back to regime change.
It's the government we want. Well, it's the government we want to work with.It's not the government that they made.And what we will also say is we're doing the population a favor.The population doesn't want Saddam Hussein, right?
He's running a regime.And look, this is not to defend Saddam Hussein, right?Saddam Hussein was this ruthless dictator, right?He was very brutal.
The challenge now is, right, after a decade, and we talked about this last time, I talked about how the U.S.had tried secretly to overthrow Saddam, and it's not working.For eight or nine years after the first Persian Gulf War, the U.S.
is running a regime change policy indirectly.So the CIA is trying to find an Iraqi general that will help overthrow Saddam or exile groups, and it's just not successful.So now, What 9-11 provides is the rationale to do it directly.
We can do it directly and we can sell this at home.So the axis of evil begins, quite frankly, building that domestic support for an intervention.Meanwhile, and I wanna make this clear, Afghanistan is not settled, right?
So the Taliban has, they have been overthrown, but they have filtered out and they've gone into effectively ghost mode.
Now, what we now know is that there was outreach from different elements of the Taliban that some wanted to surrender, some wanted to be included in the new Afghan government.And the US said, you know, there's no surrender, right?
And there's no including you in the government.And so what's going to happen is Taliban will bleed into the population. Some will flee, some will go into exile, and then reformulate and come back in.And that won't take long.
It's only within a year or two after being overthrown that you see the insurgency in Afghanistan starts to build up again while the U.S.is distracting Iraq.So I just wanna throw that out there for your readers, not to confuse them.But from the U.S.
domestic perspective, you can draw a straight line to basically three events.The axis of evil speech in which publicly now the U.S.is targeting Iraq, President Bush will then go to West Point in June.
So from January to June, he'll give the commencement address at West Point in which he'll start talking about the need for preemption.
That the war on terror, the lesson we've learned from September 11th is that we will have to go out and fight before we're attacked.
And we have to include states and non-state actors, particularly those states that have supported terrorism in the past or are doing so now, a state, for example, like Iraq.
And then the other thing he'll bring up is you can't have those states that have supported terrorism and have weapons of mass destruction programs that link is going to be very deadly for the United States and we have to prevent that.
So that's what preemption is going to do.
So that's in June and then by September the United States will fully, you know, the Bush administration will release what's known as the National Security Strategy of 2002 in which it's going to take the full elements of you're with us or you're with the terrorists, the axis of evil, and of course this notion of preemption and add what's known as the freedom agenda.
So now we're going to democratize the Middle East and we're going to begin with Iraq, right?And so Iraq is going to be this great test case of democracy.So when do we actually invade Iraq?Yeah.So that won't be till that.
So now you're going to get, you're at September.And now one of the things that Bush administration is going to do is they're going to get a, they're going to go to Congress.Um, and you've got two things happening.
Keep in mind, it's a midterm election year.So again, domestic politics is going to come in. You've got by September, October, the Bush administration is going to go to Congress and say, we want an authorization for military force.
And this is where it's going to get interesting because now you're going to get, it's not just Republicans pushing this, it's Democrats as well.
So key, you know, key conservative Democrats and those who want to run against Bush in 2004 are trying to figure out what position do they want, right? what's Joe Biden, Senator Joe Biden going to do, right?Biden is considering running in 2004.
Senator John Kerry is considering running in 2004, right?Hillary Clinton is now a senator and is considering running in 2004.Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, who had been Gore's vice president, is considering running in 2004.
And so those three or four, you know, on their own, each have a particular presidential aspirations and are trying to find some way to influence the Bush administration's policy here.So, and what level of support?
So you'll get, you know, John Kerry will say things like, look, we all agree Saddam Hussein needs to go.The question is how?Do we do it or should the Iraqis do it?Lieberman and Clinton are gonna back a use of military force.
Biden is going to try and find a middle road.So that debate is going to go on into the fall in October, and then the authorization of military force will pass.But none of those Democrats are going to benefit from supporting the war.
In fact, what it's going to do is it's going to be part of Bush's reelection campaign.
Cause wasn't it also like, wasn't like Senator Sanders, the only one who voted against what, didn't he like famously, wasn't he like the only one who voted against or something?
It wasn't the only one who voted against it.There was more than a few.Right.But it was not, it passed and it passed, it passed by a comfortable margin.Right.So the other thing, uh, you know, to take away from is this,
What's going on in the fall of 2002, which is the Bush administration is rolling out a deliberate disinformation campaign.And quite frankly, this has been going on for over a year.So for example, you will have the show Frontline on PBS, right?
So Frontline will do within less than two months after September 11th.So this is now November 2001.
Will do a story in which they have quote-unquote defectors from iraq Talking about the weapons of mass destruction program that they knew about and a terrorism training camp in which iraqi intelligence Taught terrorists how to hijack airplanes and they will ask the actual, you know, the the reporter will ask Well, did you see a connection on 9-11?
He said well when I saw what happened on 9-11 I immediately thought of the training camp, right? So, you already see the ground being laid by these defectors with ties to the CIA, two months after 9-11, trying to link Iraq to 9-11.
The Bush administration will take that another step.Vice President Cheney will start talking about links, an alleged meeting between the mastermind of 9-11, the leader of the group, Mohammad Atta, and Iraqi intelligence.Turns out, completely false.
Hi, I'm Barbie.And I'm Barbie.We're making a podcast together.The Barbie Podcast.Like us, so many of you have big dreams, problems to solve, fears to conquer, and cool stuff you want to learn.We're here to listen.
We'll connect you with remarkable people from all over the world who are experts in their fields.The first season of the Barbie podcast is available now.
Follow and listen wherever you get your podcast. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day.You might know me as the creator and host of the How to Fail podcast, but I want to tell you about a new podcast I've made.
How to Write a Book is for anyone who wants to get their story out there.Fronted by a best-selling author, a super agent, and a powerhouse publisher, this 12-week masterclass will take you right through from developing an idea to nailing the plot.
If you want to get all episodes at once and completely ad-free, subscribe now.Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
In this frontline segment in October, November 2001, there are Iraqis, like defectors, air quote defectors, who are saying that there's like these militarized training camps between the Iraqi government and these people.
But then it turned out that those subjects in this article had links to the United States CIA.That's what you're saying?
So it's literally like a little bit of a wag the dog.
Yeah.Like a bull by the dog.Jonathan, if, so right now, so here's, here's like, you know, PBS actually has had to go back in and add all these editorial notes that they could never confirm these claims.
You know, it's just like three years later, 2004, 2005, where they go back in, add these editorial notes that we could never confirm these claims by these defectors.
They have- It's like by then the damage is already fucking done.Like three years, four years later. The damage is done.We learned about misinformation and disinformation here.
Like we know that when people first hear something, they will always think that that's the true thing.
That's the true thing.I mean, here's the other thing they will show. And they still have this.So they will do a dramatization, okay, of this training camp with this Boeing 737 or 707, you know, dilapidated 707, where they train these guys.
They'll do a dramatization showing how they train them to take over airplanes.They will have a sketch.One of the defectors will draw this sketch literally in crayon. of the map, you know, the map of this training facility, where the Boeing is.
And this is shown to the public as if this is, you know, like a satellite, like the equivalent of a satellite image, right?And it's still on, it's still on the PBS website, maybe not after this episode, but it's still on the PBS website.
I showed it to my students. I mean this is this is what's presented as evidence this like this crayon map.
And frontline I mean frontline on PBS is like I just consider them the most valid the most down the middle the most neutral like not politicized.You would never guess it.
So here's okay so so we talked about these fake defectors right So what they actually are is they're members of a group called the Iraqi National Congress, which was an exile group funded by the CIA, based in London, okay?Claiming to be defectors.
Here's where the defectors also come in.Now we start to get, in the fall, now, remember, that was within two months of 9-11, okay?
That that initial report was in november of 2001 Now we get to september october of 2002 as there is debate over the authorization for military force keep in mind
On the anniversary of 9-11, leading into the anniversary of 9-11, the first year, cover the New York Times.Iraq's weapons for mass destruction program is underway, has not been dismantled, as Saddam Hussein claims and as the UN confirmed.
Defectors claim, again, here we get the defectors, that the WMD program is active and it includes a nuclear component. Okay, so that's another part of this disinformation.And who does that leak get leaked to?Judith Miller at the New York Times.
So the New York Times has that front page in this.And if you look at the same day that appears in the New York Times, there's articles about kind of like the missed signals of 9-11, right?
Warning about iraqi you know an iraqi nuclear program all of it on the front page above the fold and you know how important that is and again we're talking about 2001 we're not talking about 2024 how important that is building the case for war.
You're also going to get leaks from the bush administration so here's one thing dick cheney is going to do. So dick cheney has already told this lie and he's told it where?
NBC meet the press, you know the sunday news show that everybody inside my mom goes on what I watched right, right Okay, he goes on meet the press And he says we have evidence that muhammad ata the head of the 9-11 hijackers met with iraqi intelligence in eastern europe Okay, then he says
He's going to bring in Dick Armey, who's one of the key Republicans, Republican of Texas, key in the house.And he's going to tell them, we've got two things.We've got evidence that the Iraqis are trying to get uranium cake, right, from Africa.
They don't, they never say where, right, just somewhere in Africa.
The iraqis have gone to go get uranium cake and we know that they're that they have bought they've been able to acquire early versions of drones And here's just to make it sound even more nefarious They also have digital maps of the eastern united states You know, it's kind of like it's these are the kind of things and he's telling this to dick army and dick army will later say
I left the meeting, I fully believed him.Why would Dick Cheney lie to me?I've known Dick Cheney for 20, 30 years.He's the vice president of the United States.He's a member of my party.Why would he lie to me?
They said, and then it wasn't until maybe a year or two later that I realized I had been goosed.That he had just, he had completely, you know, completely, completely misled me.Right?
So there was no, there was no real evidence of a uranium cake or like- No, there's no uranium effect.
It's all, it's, and in fact, there's going to be, this is going to be part of that, the nasty back and forth between Dems with ties to the intelligence community who are going to come out and say, the uranium cake story is false.
The ties to Iraqi intelligence are false.All of this is part of this broad misinformation campaign.And so when is that? When does that happen?That starts to happen in the spring and actually as things go bad, right?After the U.S.
invades and everything goes bad when it's frankly too late, right?Is when you're going to start to see these stories falling apart.
So when do they invade?So when do they invade Iraq?
March, April of 2003, right?
So it's going to be... So March, April of 2003.
And then when's that famous video of Saddam Hussein being found in that hole?When does that happen?
That's going to be in the fall.No, that'll be in the fall of 2003.That'll be in the fall of 2003 when he's captured.But in between, so here's, and I want to make this point.So here's where the disinformation campaign works.
Pew Research goes out and does a poll. and says to Americans, especially registered voters, do you believe Iraq was involved in the 9-11 attacks?And at that point, we're talking October, November of 2002, so a year after 9-11.
Yes, 80% will say, yes, Iraq was involved. Now, that number is going to decrease by the time the U.S.
invades, but it's still a majority of Americans polled believe Iraq was involved in 9-11, and Iraq has an active weapons of mass destruction campaign, and the majority will be in favor of an invasion.
So when the US invades in the spring, and this is, again, back to your point about France was opposed to this, Germany was opposed to this, Russia was opposed to this, that does not stop Don Rumsfeld.
What Don Rumsfeld is going to talk about is you go to war with the coalition you have.We have put together a coalition of key states, in other words, those that support us, and that's what we're going to war with.
Because the United Kingdom famously supported that, right?Yes.They aligned.
And in fact, unlike the United States, I mean, to give the UK credit, the UK has conducted at least two assessments, inquiries into why this happened, right?And what they will find is the following. Because who was the prime minister?Tony Blair.
So it's Tony Blair's government, right?Had been a close ally of Bill Clinton.And he will, after 9-11, will be fully in favor of the Bush doctrine and interventions.And one of the things that one of the major inquiries found was this.
Why did Blair do this?Well, one of the things he's going to say is, that Blair feared losing influence with the Bush administration.We knew the Bush administration was going to go to war.We didn't want to be on the outside.
We thought we could help influence internally.We thought we could help get them use the UN, right?We could get them to do certain things if we showed influence.But here's the other thing.UK intelligence is going to get juiced.
So in fact, they actually have the memos of Jack Straw, the foreign minister, putting pressure on the British intelligence and saying, you need to show that Iraq here is the major threat.
Because what they're going to get back is a report that says, actually, we don't have good evidence of a WMD program in Iraq.We believe it's been dismantled.
We do have strong evidence of an Iranian WMD program and a North Korean WMD program, but we don't have good evidence of an Iraqi program.And Jack Straw will come back and tell them, this is not good enough.
You need to show that Iraq is a unique threat. So they're going to juice British intelligence the same way that the Bush administration puts pressure on the CIA to show that Iraq is a threat.
So there is a year-long disinformation campaign from September 11, 2001,
all the way to the first anniversary, September 11, 2002, where the Bush administration is laying the groundwork for an invasion of Iraq, even though there isn't explicit evidence around Iraq being a part of, but they've, so they've, but no problem.
They'll manufacture the evidence.They'll get out on frontline.
So, you know, there have been studies of some of the press coverage from 2001 and especially 2002, 2003. about how many articles had, for example, a pro-war bent.Hundreds of articles with a pro-war bent.Dozens, if not more, op-eds are coming up.
Because what you would get, what the administration did really effectively, Jonathan, was they created this echo chamber.And so here's how it would work.
Condoleezza Rice would say something, or for example, President Bush says something in Columbus, Ohio, right before the midterm elections, and he uses this great phrase, we can't wait for the smoking gun that will come in the form of a mushroom cloud.
Think about that phrase, right?He's going to say that.Condi Rice will repeat it.Dick Cheney will repeat it.
And then what you'll get is on the senate floor or in the house Key congressmen and senators will also keep reusing this phrase or what they'll do is even better as they'll say this I spoke with the national security advisor And she informed me and they'll lay out these claims like the connections to iraqi intelligence like the wmd program so it gets recycled on the senate floor and then picked up by the nightly news
The other place where they'll do it, and this is where they work amazingly well, is the use of key think tanks, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, where they came in, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
All of these pro-war think tanks, where their experts would go on the nightly news, or 24, they didn't have to go on the nightly news, 24-7 cable, CNN.
Fox and they're repeating the same claims and of course quote-unquote access to information that they got from the administration So now you've got a full spectrum Of support for the war and who's not being featured anti-war voices anti-war, you know Academic experts are not being brought on instead what you get is the military experts You get the expert from the think tank all the ties to the administration and even if they're not ties the administration So like one of the great examples is a guy named Kenneth Pollack
So Kenneth Pollack is coming out of the Brookings Institution.He's married to Ted Koppel's daughter.You remember Ted Koppel from ABC News Nightline, who herself is a reporter, right?He's married to Ted Koppel's daughter.
And of course, he worked for the National Security Council under Clinton.So he's going to write a book called The Threatening Storm.It's going to come out right in the middle of this disinformation campaign.
And what he's going to argue is the following, and he's going to reproduce it in op-eds in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.So, the left-wing New York Times, the right-wing Wall Street Journal.And the argument's going to be this.
We can fight a non-nuclear Saddam now, or we can fight a nuclear Saddam tomorrow, but we will have to fight Saddam because he wants hegemony over the Middle East. So that's the over and over again, he's going to hit that point.
And what's important about somebody like Kenneth Pollack is because he's coming out of the Clinton administration and he worked for the National Security Council and his book he's going to claim has been vetted by the CIA and the NSC.
So, you know, it's true.I'm sharing with you what I can that's not classified or has been deemed to be releasable.OK, so this is one of the things where they were able to get
Voices that would appeal to so you as a centrist dem living in the Midwest or even in Westchester County, New York, right?You know, I'm not comfortable with the war but man, I'm not comfortable that's going to war but Saddam Hussein's a bad guy.
There's been a decade of demonization of Saddam Hussein of Iraq of his weapons of mass destruction program of his torture chambers He could do anything.Saddam, he's like your perfect quintessential evil character.
He can do anything and you can expect him to do anything. But one of the things the Bush administration is gonna have trouble with, they're still encountering a lot of resistance and reluctance.
And so what's remarkable about this disinformation campaign is how malleable it was.So in other words, they went from WMDs are a threat, okay?Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9-11.So you have those two connections.Now it's human rights.
If we can- Oh, weapons of mass destruction, you guys.I had to think about WMD for a minute, but yes, yes, yes, yes.Okay.So is that, and now it's human rights.And now it's human rights. He was torturing all the Iraqis.
And he was torturing all these Iraqis.And so now we have to save those Iraqis.And then if that doesn't work, democracy.
So all this is happening in Iraq from 2000, or it's like, it's giving Afghanistan, then we're in Iraq, it's 2001.Bush like kind of really rides this whole terrorism thing to a second term.Because I remember like in 2004,
Yeah, because I think I missed being able to vote in 2004 by four months or five months.I would have turned 18 in 2005, so I missed that presidential vote.
But I remember thinking that if I could have voted, I was like, well, God, it's kind of scary to switch courses in the middle of this.So that seems deliberate. really cruises to re-election.
So as all of this is happening, what is going on in Israel and in Palestine?
So, and I want to draw this connection and bring it back to Iraq.So one of the things that's happening with the Bush administration is there's pressure from especially the key Arab states like Saudi Arabia.You have to restart the negotiations.
You have to get the second uprising under control, okay? But the Bush administration has come out and done the opposite.
So at the same time, in that summer of 2002, where it's already initiated the Bush doctrine, President Bush is going to come out and say, we will no longer, the United States will no longer have relations with Yasser Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority.
We want a Palestinian leadership that's untainted by terror.It's the exact phrase he will use.
When the Palestinians have a new leadership that's untainted by terror, the United States will welcome that leadership and will work then to achieve a Palestinian state.So over the next, and that's in the summer of 2002.
So as all of this, this disinformation campaign is unfolding, you still have the second uprising going on in which you have a heavy use heavy Israeli military presence in and around and attacks on Palestinian civilian areas.
You have Palestinian attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, suicide bombings conducted either by Hamas or by the mainstream FETA movement.
Dr. Khalil, will you tell me something?Can I recap something just to make sure that I'm correct about this and make sure that our listeners get it too?Because I want to make sure that I'm right about this.
So you have Yitzhak Rabin get assassinated by the far right wing Israeli.Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat and Clinton had come to the Oslo Accords.Then election happens, it's now Bush, it's Zach Rabin is assassinated.
I think, like, right, he's assassinated.And so, and that's why, like, the Oslo Accords are kind of, like, spiraling, not working, because, like, there's this big turnover.
And then the second Intifada, that's, like, is that, like, Palestinians uprising against the occupation?
And was there, like, what was, like, not to get too off track, but was the first Intifada, like, when Israel came in and, like, kicked out the Palestinians?Was that the, like, Or that's Nakba.
What is it?The Nakba was in 1948.Yeah, when Israel's created and Palestinian society was destroyed and some 800,000 Palestinians become refugees.So that's 1948, right?The first Intifada occurs in 1987.
And this is 20 years into the occupation of the West Bank in Gaza. in which, you know, it's a organic uprising against the Israeli occupation and to challenge Israeli rule, okay?And it's led mostly by youth, right?
And you haven't... And that was in the 80s you said?Because in 1987, yeah, yeah.So that... And at the time, it's led mostly by the youth.And I think, you know, not to complicate this, but so the Palestine Liberation Organization exists.
It has activists inside the West Bank in Gaza, even though it's heavily suppressed.But the leadership is in exile at that point in Tunisia.So Arafat, who is the leader of the PLO,
is in exile in Tunisia and will slowly take control over the intifada and use it to try and create relations not just with the United States, but with Israel and eventual negotiations.Okay, now that's going to take some time to unfold.
And you know Israel is gonna work to do two things suppress the intifada the first intifada.
This is 87 to 92 93 and ignore the PLO Eventually though it's going to reach an agreement with the PLO what becomes known as the Oslo Accords in 1993 and that's where we get that famous scene of Arafat and Rabin shaking hands in the White House lawn overseeing by President Clinton a couple of things to remember
The Oslo Accords is the beginning of a negotiation, right?So it's an initial recognition.So here, what you have is the PLO recognizes Israel.Israel recognizes the PLO as a negotiating partner, that's it.
It doesn't say, you know, the PLO, and we recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinians and an eventual government of a Palestinian state, just as we recognize you as a negotiating partner to end this conflict, okay?
What will then ensue are seven years of negotiations.It's supposed to be five, but there's seven years of negotiations.In between, Rabin is assassinated by an Israeli settler.So that's in 1995.
In 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu is elected as prime minister, and his whole goal is to scuttle the Oslo Accords.He's not even shy about it.I'm going to kill the Oslo Accords.There will be no Palestinian state, OK?
Now he is only prime minister for about three years, and his replacement is now Ehud Barak, the famous general.So it's in 2000 when Barak comes in, and we talked a little bit about this in the second episode.
Barak will come in, President Clinton is on his way out of office, and will say, we're going to try and pull together a high stakes summit. I'm going to bring you to Camp David in the summer of 2000, and we're going to negotiate the end of this.
Remember, the Osso Accords were supposed to be a five-year interim agreement, but the negotiations have gone on for seven years. And even by the time they get to Camp David, the two sides are far apart.They haven't had the preliminary negotiations.
I think I told you that there's the story.So it's Ehud Barak, Yasser Arafat, and Clinton.
And then you told us this story.But basically, Arafat gets kind of screwed.He gets blamed.
I mean, he says to Clinton, we're not ready. I don't think we're ready.Barack has not been negotiating in good faith.The preliminary negotiations haven't gone well.Actually, they haven't even been held.We haven't really been talking.
And he says, the negotiations are going to fail, and you're going to blame me.And Clinton says, I promise not to blame you.And of course, they have the negotiations, and they fail.And who does Clinton blame but Arafat?
Now, in between, Barack is weak politically.
He's not popular back at home, he's weakling, and he's being pressed on the right by another famous Israeli general, Ariel Sharon, the founder of the settlement movement, if you will, hardcore right-wing Israeli Likud party.
Oh my God, that's how you say that word?Oh my God.Oh my God.I, I have been sounding that out so wrong on the, in my mind, that was always like the Luke, the Luke.I think I must be dyslexic.How do you say it again?
Well, the party is Likud.Likud Nick is kind of like a nickname for someone who's an activist in the Likud.Yeah.
Yeah.Okay.Likud Nick.Okay.Likud party.Okay.Yes.Got it.Okay.I'm with you.So he's getting pressured.Yeah.
He's getting pressured.He's getting pressured by the right from Sharon.So when, when the negotiations collapse, and I think one of the things that's missed is when the negotiations collapse, the second Intifada doesn't start immediately, right?
It doesn't start a day later.Right. Because that's 2000, and then the second Intifada doesn't start until... It starts in September of 2000, but what's the trigger?
The trigger is mostly linked to Sharon's visit to what's known as the Temple Mount, or the Haram al-Sharif in Arabic, right?So this is where you see where the Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are, right?
That area where the Wailing Wall is also located.So it's one of the most sensitive and holy sites both for Muslims and for Jews. Now, Sharon is going to go do this very provocative visit to the Temple Mount.And he's deliberately provoking it.
What he's saying is, we have a right to walk here.We have as much right to walk here as Muslims do.And I'm going to show you we have a right to walk here. And it's heavy police presence.
And what year is this again, Dr. Khalil?
This is now September 2000.So everything's coming to a head in September 2000.Oh, yeah, exactly.Everything's coming to a head.The negotiations have collapsed, but they're still talking.The summit failed, but they're still talking.
And that's one of the other things that's missed.And so even though the summit fails and Clinton blames RFI, they're still talking.They're still negotiating. Then Sharon does a visit to the Temple Mount, heavy police presence.
There's a lot of anger among Palestinians.And so when the second Intifada starts, it starts as an initial set of protests, rock throwing, and a heavy Israeli response to this. And then it starts to spiral.Okay.
So there's actually, you know, there's, there's this idea that, uh, you know, you know, what you start to see in September is this heavy Israeli response.And the idea is, you know, we're going to teach the Palestinians a lesson.
We're going to teach Arafat a lesson and we're going to show them, right.You know, we're going to get those concessions.
And so you're going to have a large number of Palestinian deaths, and that's going to create, in September and October, this spiral.And then it's not until the first month or two into the Intifada that you get the first suicide bombing in response.
But it's after a number of Palestinian deaths. But keep in mind, what's going on in the US?You have an election, right?We've got Bush v. Gore.That's coming up.But the negotiations are still going on.
They go on up until Clinton's right on the way of leaving office in December of 2000. It's only when Sharon gets elected in January of 2001 that it's over.Bush comes into office.
So Sharon, oh, because Ehud Barak had been.So he loses to Ariel Sharon.And so then it's Ariel Sharon and basically like a newly elected Bush.
And so here's the other thing we know. OK, so the second Defat is spiraling.Sharon has been elected.We have some insights from key cabinet members that what Colin Powell wants is to restart the negotiations.We have to get involved, OK?
The key Arab states, like Saudi Arabia, like Jordan, want us to get back involved.And Clinton says, I'm sorry, Bush says the following. I'm not gonna do what Clinton did.I'm not gonna devote my presidency to this, okay?
I met Sharon, I know Sharon, and we're gonna lean, and he's gonna literally say, we're gonna lean back towards the Israelis, you know, implying that Clinton had leaned too far to the Palestinians, okay?
And when Powell tells him, look, the violence is gonna spiral if you do that, if we don't get involved, and he says, well, you know what?You know, sometimes a show of force A show of force by one side will help settle the issue.
So he's willing to rely on Ariel Sharon's reputation as this hardline general to basically go crush the Palestinian Defada, okay, and then force concessions on the Palestinians.That doesn't work.
Unfortunately, what it does is it leads to kind of entrenching this conflict and entrenching the violence, okay?And that will kick in throughout the spring of 2001. leading into 9-11.
So we talked about, you know, what was supposed to happen on 9-11 besides the attack.One of the things that was supposed to happen was through the spring into the summer is Powell wants the U.S.to re-engage, the Secretary of State wants the U.S.
to re-engage with negotiations, and he's getting pushback from the right wing of the administration, right, particularly Cheney, Rumsfeld, and he can't get the president's support.
We have indications that he was supposed to make a major announcement on 9-11 or 9-12 about the U.S.reengaging in the peace process with the goal of a Palestinian state as the outcome, right?That never happens.9-11 happens and that gets sidetracked.
Now what that brings us to, as I mentioned, now over the next year, so now you're at 9-11, over the next year, the intifada continues, just as U.S.
invades Afghanistan, it has this secret policy.Which, Dr. Khalil, correct me if I'm wrong on this, though.And that's not really getting that much press coverage because the U.S.
just had its fucking hands full and we're like, we are so focused on this thing.I don't remember hearing anything about an Intifada or what was going on in Israel or anything in early 2000.
So here's where I'm going to disagree with you.It actually was getting a ton of press coverage.The coverage and it's It's challenging, right?
Because what Palestinians are trying to get across is, look, there's all this focus on negotiations, but the occupation never stopped, right?We're still being occupied.Settlements are still being built, right?
We're still being, you know, we have a quote unquote government, but our government is corrupt, the government led by Arafat. It's not really fully in control of the territory.
We still have israeli checkpoints israel still controls all the resources They control the cell phone network.They control everything right?
We can't get to our jobs without passing through three or four or five checkpoints And this is this is before the intifada.This is before the second uprising, right?
So trying to get that message across and what the pushback they're getting from the media is you know Why did Arafat turn down the deal at Camp David?And then once the suicide bombings start, when are the suicide bombings going to end?
So, you know, that narrative kicks in, which is really reflective of kind of the Clinton administration's position, right? Where it gets put on the back burner, Jonathan, is after 9-11, because now it's all within that war on terror narrative.
Because now it's suicide bombings have to stop, Palestinians are terrorists, and not only did Iraq support 9-11, Palestinians supported 9-11.There's a famous, infamous
uh video clips supposedly of palestinians somewhere in the west bank cheering 9-11 right and it's one of these clips that will get shown over and over again on fox or on cnn and that becomes the narrative oh look they hate us right okay and they're terrorists so by the time you get to another rationale for the war for the invasion of iraq is going to be this
You want us the bush administration us united states to re-engage in negotiations, right?Well the road to peace in jerusalem Starts in baghdad, right?
So because we're going to reshape this whole region Okay, and because we want a palestinian leadership untainted by terror.Well saddam hussein and yasser arafat have ties, right?
They're friendly if we get rid of saddam and we get rid of arafat now we can reshape the whole region we actually have We have President Bush talking to Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes, his key media person, about his freedom agenda.
And one of the things he says is, the Palestinian territories could be a lab for my freedom agenda.
Just think, you know, the combination of democracy in Iraq and democracy in the Palestinian territories, what a message this will send to the rest of the region.This will be our lab.So where that becomes important
OK, is not only does the war in Iraq go bad, right, but now the Bush administration is going to start after Bush is reelected, after Yasser Arafat dies in November of 2004, right, to say we need elections in the palace.
Well, that's a good question, right? He dies of natural causes, supposedly.He gets sick.He is taken to France for medical treatment and never comes back.He comes back in a coffin.The Israelis have hinted.
There's a book out there by a well-known journalist where the Israelis have hinted that Sharon had Arafat killed.They won't come out and say it in black and white. The Israelis have hinted it, okay?
But of course, if you say this, you're a conspiracy theorist.
Now, Arafat's family, particularly his wife, his widow now, has said that they believe there were traces of plutonium on some of his clothes, on his, but the autopsy was, they did a post-mortem autopsy, obviously, where they went back, they took samples from the body.
They said they were inconclusive, they did not show plutonium. But there's things about his demeanor when he got sick that suggest that it wasn't natural.We'll put it that way, okay?Whether or not whether he did or he didn't, right?
His key deputy, Mahmoud Abbas, who had been favored by Washington.Mahmoud, I remember him.I remember that name too.He's still around.He's still around and he's still president, right?
So keep in mind, I talked about, and I know we're jumping a bit, but let me kind of piece this together for the audience.
So in the summer of 2002, as the Bush administration has laid out the initial Bush doctrine, building the case for war in Iraq, and Bush announces that the U.S.
will no longer have ties with Yasser Arafat and a new Palestinian leadership is needed, who they will focus on as his key deputy, okay?So they will say Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinians need to create the position of prime minister.
They'd only had the position of president.Now we want a weak president and a strong prime minister. And what we want to do is take away Arafat's control of the treasury.
So we are going to insist that we put in this new financial minister of finance, a guy who's trained, because you know Bush is from Texas.They have a guy named Salam Fayyad.He's a Palestinian from the University of Texas.
He's gonna be your new finance minister, okay?Fayyad had a background.He worked for the World Bank.He worked for the International Monetary Fund.He's perfect for this. So they're going to insert these two in to the Palestinian Authority.
And Arafat thinks he's buying time.He's going to say, OK, look, fine, we'll create a prime minister.Fine, I'll bring this guy in as finance minister.And he's going to buy time. Because Arafat, he's been a survivor for decades.
I know how to play this game.I'm gonna buy time and I'll undermine both of these clowns and I'm gonna come out on top.It doesn't work out this time, right?So he's gonna die in November 2004.
In January 2005, Abbas will be elected the new president of the Palestinian Authority.And now, what the Bush administration is gonna say is, okay, great, we've got you elected. And now we want to hold parliamentary elections, okay?
Remember, this is the freedom agenda.And so what Bush is hoping for, so even though he's been reelected, Remember Iraq at this point just to get your audience to understand these connections Iraq is spiraling in the middle of this insurgency, right?
2003 2004 very high body count not just of US soldiers, but of Iraqis Okay, and you have a spiraling insurgency and a civil war that has actually developed inside Iraq, which we could talk more about
But in the Palestinian territories, what the Bush administration is now going to push for is elections.Okay, we want to show the freedom agenda works.
Quick question, Dr. Khalil.Jesus Christ.Okay, okay, okay, okay.So, is there, and this is our final question because I do have a meeting in three minutes and I have to go because it's with the Fab Five.
Saddam gets deposed and like or he gets killed or taken at whatever he gets like removed in 2003 the whole thing happens like he's like in the hole and and then the US thinks like oh This won't be that long.
We don't like we'll get someone new in there like it'll be okay But then it quickly devolves into a civil war Americans are dying left right and center Iraqis are dying left right and center very high body count.
So that's going on from like 2002 up like like for a long time.
August 2002, right through the election, right through the November election.Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.So then simultaneously prior to 2001, you have the second Intifada raising up, which first started because like, um, Sharon does the walk and then, so then protests start, but then there's some rock throwing and stuff.
And then they're like, we're going to fucking crush this down.So they over, they over Yeah.I mean, they send in tanks, they send in Apache helicopters.
The overwhelming force, we're going to crush the Intifada from the beginning, right in the bed.
And do hundreds die?Do thousands die?Thousands die, thousands die.Thousands of Palestinians die.So then as a result of that, then there's like some suicide bombings inside Israel from Palestinian, air quote, terrorists.
And so that's why this starts escalating.That's why the Intifada really spirals out of control.
Because one thing I had heard, but I, so one thing I had read like on a Tik Tok thing, or maybe it was on an article, I can't remember, but they were saying how like part of the current peace ceasefire thing, like currently is like, uh, it's like, well, we can't have a two state solution with the PLO as the head, but then didn't they, they elected the PLO or they elected this leader in 2005.
And then isn't it true that Israel's never allowed another election to take place since then? Right.So, so this is, it's, it's okay.
Great points, right?So much.No, no, it's okay.Let's talk about the elections.That's where I was getting to, which is great.Okay.So they have the election in 2005, right?The election for president.Now they're gonna do a parliamentary election in 2006.
So now the Bush administration kind of outsmarts themselves, right?Why?Because now it's them plus Abbas's Fetha party.Keep in mind,
One of the other problems that's happened is the mainstream feta party is losing popular support They're seen as complicit in the occupation.
They're seen as corrupt Okay, arafat, you know towards the end even though they there was respect for him as a revolutionary figure if you will He was seen as corrupt.
He was the palestinian authority was seen as incompetent, but who is increasing in popularity hamas?Why they're seen as not corrupt? They have effective social services, right?So the Palestinian Authority had poor social services, poorly funded.
60 to 70% of the budget went to security.Why?Because the Israelis and the Americans insisted on it.So we want you to create these security services, but it's not security for Palestinians. you're securing Israel, right?
So it's effectively subcontractors of the occupation.And that's how they're gonna be talked about, right?So the average Palestinian is gonna say, you know, I'm either not getting paid or there's no jobs.
We've got the Israeli occupation up top, and we've got the Palestinians actually maintaining the control on us day to day.So Hamas starts to increase in popularity, okay?
And they're portraying themselves as, you know, they're not involved in negotiations. They are a resistance force and this of course adds to their kind of their their their the myth of Hamas if you will, right?But now something interesting happens.
They decide for the first time we're gonna participate in the parliamentary election Okay, and this is one of these these, you know, these things where you know FETA is and the United States will say about Hamas, you know, they talk a good game and
but they actually won't stand in the elections.They would prefer just to play spoiler on the outside.And they've been playing spoiler in the peace process since the 90s, okay?There's some truth to that.
They had been playing spoiler in the peace process since the 90s, right?And had been marked as a terrorist organization by the United States since the 90s.
But now all of a sudden Hamas says, okay, we're gonna participate in the elections, in the parliamentary elections, and we're gonna run on a platform.And I think it's important for your listeners to know
They don't run on a platform of jihad forever, right?Or, you know, from the river to the sea, right?What they run on a platform of is reform and change, right?We're going to be different than the corrupt government that's inside.
Now, here's what's interesting. FETA is split.So what you'll have is in each election, you'll have basically two FETA candidates and one Hamas candidate.
So when the shock happens that Hamas wins this election, that is going to happen because, and they don't win by an overwhelming margin, they win by like 43%.Why?Because the FETA vote is split.
And so that's going to be the shock that's going to shock the Bush administration.It's going to shock the Palestinian story.It's going to shock the effective movement.Okay.So Hamas will win this parliamentary election.
But I think what's also important for your, for your listeners to understand is this parliament is only for the West Bank and Gaza, right?It's not for Palestinians around the world.It's not for Palestinians living in exile or refugees.
It's just for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza under occupation.And it has a very limited, Rule the legislative council.So almost immediately What the bush administration does is say?Oh, absolutely not.
We will not accept this election result.
Okay, we're not going to allow hamas to take power And so what they're going to do is they're going to pressure abbas not to recognize the election They're going to put pressure on and even hamas and this is I think one of these things where kind of hamas is often viewed As kind of like and look there's a lot of issues with the movement
But they also attempt to kind of mollify where they'll say, okay, we'll form a national unity government with FETA, right?We'll find a way to form a national unity government.
And what happens is Israel and the United States consistently undermine those negotiations and say, there's no way we're going to recognize this government.In fact, what actually happens is
the US, the European Union, and Israel placed sanctions on the Palestinian Authority.So you have this remarkable moment, right, in 2006 or 2007, in which a population under occupation is under sanctions, not the occupier.
I mean, it's remarkable, right?Think about that.So, what's going to eventually happen.
Because we did not like the results of this democratically held election.
We want this election.We want this election as an example of the freedom agenda.Okay.And we don't like the result.So now.And now what happens?
What's going on with Israel's leaders?Yes, yes, yes, yes.
So real quick, right?What's going to happen is the Bush administration is going to decide on something very, very simple.
We are going to reward Abbas in the West Bank and we're going to punish, this should sound familiar to you because you can draw a straight line from these policies to October 7th and today, and we're going to punish Hamas in Gaza.
And what we're going to try and do is force Palestinians in Gaza to overthrow the Hamas government, right?And we're going to put pressure on Abbas to challenge and overthrow Hamas, right?
And so you're going to get this riff now and effectively a Palestinian civil war that's encouraged by the United States.And that policy of a siege on Gaza and punishing Gaza is consistent from 2005 to 2024, right?
It's just how deep and how embedded that siege is. and then periodic attacks by Israel on Gaza to try and weaken Hamas.Before October 7th, they would talk about this as kind of mowing the lawn, right?We have to mow the lawn.
Meanwhile, you know, so this is, and I think I can stop there and I can, and that may be a lot for your listeners, but that's, I think that the one of the lines you can draw right up to October 7th.
Dr. Khalil, I'm so sorry to cut our conversation short.
You know, I love talking to you as always, but we're going to just, we're going to put a pin in here and we're going to pick it up for the fourth and last installment of our, of our series together.But thank you so much for coming today.
We're going to put a pin in here in 2006.We're going to pick it up when we come back. As always, Dr. Khalil, thank you so much for your time and for coming on Getting Curious again, and for giving us space to learn more.
So here's a huge takeaway that I have from this episode, and this will come up again in our fourth installment, but Republican and Democrat administration alike have caused
some amount of death, destruction, and mayhem the world over because of our history, because of the things that have happened.
It's like, even if you look at Biden in Afghanistan, like if you look at the pullout from Vietnam, like there is, whether it's Republican or Democrat, it's like, if someone starts something, someone else is going to finish it.
And so that's just, it's very complicated.And Even though I don't have that many reasons to believe in America and in our politicians, I don't know why, but I still do.I believe that we can create a better world in future.
I believe that we can elect leaders that can create a better world in future.But I believe that those leaders need to have a plan.We have to figure out a way forward.So it's messy.I love you guys.I hope you're okay.I hope we're okay.I love you guys.
Okay, bye. You've been listening to Getting Curious with me, Jonathan Van Ness.You can learn more about this week's guests and their area of expertise in the episode description and follow us on Instagram at Curious with JVN.
You can catch us here every Wednesday and make sure to tune in every Monday for episodes of Pretty Curious, which we love.It's our podcast on all things beauty.Get into it.Still can't get enough?And you want to get a little spicy with us?
You can subscribe to Extra Curious on Apple Podcasts for commercial-free listening and our subscription-only show, Ask JVN, where we're talking sex, relationships, or really just whatever is on my mind that week.Our theme music is Freak By Quinn.
Thank you so much to her for letting us use it.Our editor and engineer is Nathaniel McClure.Getting Curious is produced by me, Chris McClure, with production support from Julie Carrillo, Ann Curry, and Chad Hall.
Sign in
