Yeah, you can find all of those things in there but basically, I think it's fair to say that we have learned enough, if that's the right phrase to use, that overt military operations, for what are clearly commercial reasons, are less apt to happen these days and we usually keep those covert. Let's look at Iraq, we tried time and time again to exercise covert operations against Saddam Hussein, the ultimate interest there being oil.
When we finally did get that way with overt military operations, that is to say, kick him out, take over his country basically, with overt military operations, it took some nut case like George W Bush and Dick Cheney to get in there and do it.
R.K.: Now you are the-
L.W.: It took 9/11. It took 9/11. You never would have been able I think to pull off the invasion of Iraq in 2003 if you had not had 9/11.
R.K.: Now you're speaking as the Chief of Staff for the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So you've got insider information when you talk about this, right?
L.W.: Well all of this stuff is in the public domain now. Everything I have talked about is in the public domain, I teach it. The National Security Archives at George Washington University contain crime after crime after crime after crime, documented-- right there for anybody to read. Top secret documents declassified and telling us exactly what we did in the name of the American People.
R.K.: You brought up 9/11, let's talk about 9/11. My readers are very interested in 9/11. What is your take on what we know and what we don't know and what we have been told about 9/11?
L.W.: I am not the expert on that. I lived through it and that's part of the reason I am probably not the expert. I have not done a great deal of research on it and don't plan on doing a great deal of research on it because I don't think the material available for research is going to be worth it for some time yet. I would like to get my hands on the classified annex to the 9/11 Commission's Report because I believe that annex is probably full of things that the American people ought to know. Not least of which is what was Saudi Arabia's complicity in 9/11.
R.K.: Okay. You have any suspicions there?
L.W.: Yeah, I suspect Saudi Arabia's complicity was quite clear. And I just don't know what it consisted of and who was involved. I have my suspicions but suspicions are one thing, knowing the actual truth is another.
R.K.: Okay. A lot of 9/11 people think it was an inside job that happened there. What do you think?
L.W.: My experience in government for some forty years has led me to believe that more often than not, government now, not the corporations behind the government, government is more often than not incompetent, not competent, so it's, in cases like this when people have conspiracy theories about this or that happened I kind of roll my eyes in wonder about their knowledge of their government because the government simply does not have the skill to do that sort of thing.
R.K.: Okay. So, you also mentioned the CIA. Now, I can't do an interview with you without talking about Edward Snowden and his release of information and disclosures that have come since then. What is your take on Ed Snowden and what he has done and what we now know about the American spying on its citizens?
L.W.: I just finished reading Glenn Greenwald's book-- the new one. In fact I just put down my Kindle. Maybe six hours ago. Three things leapt out at me as I read that book. One was the very firm confirmation of my appreciation of Edward Snowden-- young, clearheaded, dedicated, concerned, talented, extremely talented in what I call information technology geekiness and a capable individual to the extent that he was able to take from what are really below average bureaucracies.
Generally everything he needed to take to prove, to substantiate to the American people, that those below average bureaucracies were abusing power. That's the first thing I saw. In other words, that Snowden is a genuine Whistleblower. Second thing I saw and I think I saw this with as much clarity as the first, and as much firmness is that the American mainstream media is completely in tow of its corporate interests and that is to say that when you have a mainstream media whose salaries are not subsistence level, they are quite luxurious and who depend on the corporate interest behind them for those salaries to continue you will not get anybody speaking truth to power.
That is to say, that American mainstream media is useless. It's even worse than useless. It's dangerous. For the most part, it marches to war in lock-step with its government. It marches to abuse of power in lock-step with its government. And the third thing that comes out of the book I think that is riveting, is just how much the National Security Agency overstepped its legal bounds in terms of its surveillance activities.
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